Alexius

> ***"Golden Mother, bring us peace."***
>
>

### Relatives

The celestial Elyssael (birth mother, deceased)Lianda, the Golden Mother (adoptive mother)

Titus Petillius Cato (father - not common knowledge)

## Physical description

### Gender

Male

Alexius ("just Alexius") is a nephilim priest of Lianda hailing from the empire of Thaedia, and one of the leading Triumvirate of The Wardens of the Vale.

## Background

Of Alexius' life before coming to the Guardian Vale, very little is known, as he seems disinclined to share. He is familiar with Thaedian high society (in which, he says, "the scum floats to the top"), is known to have been a scholar, and - so it is said - was once somehow acquainted with the fell Lord Strigos (or, at least, knows a great deal about him).

## Personality Traits

*Lawful Good.* Alexius abhors the aims and conduct of the Camp of Shadow, and has openly stated his opposition to Gideon, but has only recently allied completely with the Camp of Light.

Alexius is a pacifist, frequently seen completely unarmed, and has taken a vow "never to harm another living soul". Though some have openly scoffed, he may have been vindicated by recent revelations that the blood shed on Guardian Hill has begun to awaken the beast that slumbers beneath.

It has transpired that his vow does not extend to demons and undead, as they do not possess "living souls" - he took the field himself and struck quite a few blows against the demon Fen'hyrl.

Following his transformation into a Hellspawn and his subsequent redemption, Alexius appears to have taken up a new oath - not to harm another living soul, *except* in defence of himself or another.

## Religion

Alexius is a devout follower (and adoptive son) of *Lianda*, the Golden Mother, and draws mystical power from her as a healer. He wears a glittering gold stone around his neck, which seems to have divine energy of its own.

His faith only appears to have grown stronger after he discovered he was a nephilim (rather than human, as he had previously thought), and her adoptive son.

## In the Guardian Vale

### **Early Adventures**

Alexius arrived in the Guardian Vale as the conflict over the Tablet of Night was reaching its peak. Allying with Dillia Baleyfayr, he stood with the Camp of Light as the dwarf warrior shattered the accursed artefact atop the Weft stone.

As life in the Vale returned to something approaching normality, Alexius was hired by Jo'v to investigate strange High Elven markings appearing on trees. With the aid of the elves of the Camp of Light (and after being attacked several times for his trouble), he was able to discover the message "the one beneath has heard you whilst dreaming", though he could not divine its meaning. He was one of the last to see Janus before the razing of the Camp of Light, and later used the blessed instruments purchased from him to empower his pendant.

Alexius was horrified when the patron of the Vale's grand tourney was revealed to be Lord Strigos, and spent much of the day avoiding the evil nobleman's gaze. With the aid of his comrades in the newly-formed Adventurers League, Alexius orchestrated the breaking of Strigos' Orb of Witnessing, and later divulged to Jo'v and Maxwell Eisenhorn all he knew about Strigos and what he may be up to.

Along with the rest of the League, Alexius was among the first to be stricken by the Scarlet Hand plague, but struggled through his illness to investigate newly-formed Infernum runes scattered across the Vale. After he was cured (and the lingering sickness stolen by the necromancer Judas'Tor), Alexius secured Hrafn's aid in deciphering the runes - discovering, to his horror, the warning "blood seeps down, a blackened tongue moves once more". Rushing to the Weft Stone, which even then was the site of a pitched battle, he, Hrafn and Jo'v pleaded with the others to stop fighting and feeding the beast, though to little avail.

### **The Golden Son**

Later, when investigating the Hill's wards with Sir Maxwell, Alexius was dragged off into the inner Weft by mutant creatures bearing Strigos' brand across their chests. As the factions of Guardian Vale clashed over the Sword of Knowledge, the healer discovered that the beasts were in fact people whom Strigos had twisted into monsters. It was then that Lianda herself appeared to him in a vision, and told him of his true parentage - he was not human, as he had believed his entire life, but Nephilim, born of a mortal father and a celestial mother. Channelling her power through his body, Lianda cured the mutants of their affliction, and Alexius led them out of the Weft to safety.

As the Blood Moon waxed and Strigos drew nearer, Alexius drew himself close to exhaustion trying to unite the feuding factions of the Vale against the Dread Owl's predations, managing to broker a tenuous alliance between the Adventurers League and the camps of Light and Shadow. Baleyfayr reacted violently to learning that Li'anda had taught him magic, and came close to striking him down within Tavern Town itself. When Strigos arrived, Alexius wielded his newfound arcane power against the dark sorcerer and his shifter minions as the alliance was tested again and again. Betrayed by Claire Nuire, Alexius was taken captive by Strigos, and was only rescued after Maxwell Eisenhorn sacrificed himself to save him, leaving the healer in command of the Adventurers League and - in the absence of most of its founding members - at a near-total loss as to how to proceed.

It took some effort, but Alexius was able to rebuild the League in time for its next major threat - the demons Fen'hyrel and Tempus, who were inhabiting the bodies of Kochab and Hrafn. Numerous entities in the Vale wished them gone, not least of whom Alexius himself, and he allied with Jo'v and House MacCrae to take them down. Taking the field himself with a blessed staff, he managed - after two brutal defeats - to force Tempus out of Hrafn's body and into Guardian Hill using an arcane ritual (restoring Jo'v's magic in the process), and help subdue Fen'hyrl within Kochab's tainted blood.

Alexius and the League responded to rumours of an enchanted map of the Weft in Jo'v's possession with olive branches rather than steel blades, as he believed that the goodwill accumulated with the exorcism of Tempus and Fen'hyrl would earn the League a share of any spoils from a Weftward expedition. Instead he focused on hunting down mystical stones that would help Janus bind the beast beneath Guardian Hill, and cleaning up several imps loose in the Vale.

On the Weftward expedition, Alexius and the League were confronted with escaped imps, rampaging trolls and a mysterious portal to anywhere. Tensions flared as Baleyfayr and Schardaken MacCrae argued over magic, and it was all Alexius could do to keep the alliances together. The adventurers were accosted on the first night by a pair of vampire brood lords, who managed to overwhelm the expedition, leaving none with any memory of what had transpired. The second day saw Alexius cleanse the unholy taint from a cursed swamp, and observe a ritual performed by Jo'v on the Elementari Sun Gokung with interest - he negotiated with the Taverner to acquire the scroll that contained it, and attempted (to no avail) to hold the fort containing the awakening portal in the hopes of finding reagents to perform it on the wood spirit Clementine (happily finding the necessary sprite bones within the camp itself). As night fell, Alexius along with two other healers and the paladin Campbell - who together had performed the earlier ritual to exorcise the swamp - erected a circle of warding around the campfire to fend off another assault by the brood lords. Grave suspicions were confirmed when Campbell and his sister Mary turned on the group, and Alexius helped Gideon bind Mary's vampiric curse within her. As the portal awoke the next day, Alexius rushed to perform the ritual and successfully empowered Clementine - but by the time they returned to the field, the fort had been claimed by several of Light Camp and accompanying mercenaries, leaving the League to journey back to the Guardian Vale with the rest of the expedition.

To Alexius' surprise, the adventurers who went through the portal returned with an additional member - a gold dragon hatchling, which Asher dubbed "Sparky". Alexius tried to convince the Camp of Light to turn the dragon over to Gideon for safe keeping, as he feared Strigos would return and capture it himself; in the end, Asher made a bargain with the Voice of Ruin to raise the dragon herself, with the understanding that Gideon could claim it whenever she chose. It wasn't long after that when Alexius vanished again, without saying a word to anyone of where he was going, leaving the rest of the League worried for his safety.

### **Hellspawn**

It wasn't until Lord Strigos returned to the Guardian Vale that the horrible truth was revealed. Alexius had been captured by the Dread Owl and mutated via a Ruinous ritual into a hideous, cruel, bloodthirsty beast. After terrorising the Vale under Strigos' command, Alexius was captured by the Adventurers League and, eventually, bent to the will of the Camp of Light when the sceptre controlling him was taken by Audrey Lorém. On Audrey's orders, Alexius enacted poetic justice on Strigos, brutally rending his flesh (or, rather, Rovic Vervidsen's flesh) to enable his capture, and watched with vindictive glee as the evil sorcerer's soul was taken into Ruin. Following this, Alexius himself was carried off in chains to the Camp of Light in the hope that the holy warriors could cure his affliction.

Alexius spent several weeks in captivity in the Camp of Light, under the watchful eye of Hrafn, chafing against his bonds and tormenting any who came to visit. Eventually, the warriors of Light discovered the means to change him back - by purifying his holy symbol, they were able to partially reverse his transformation, and revealed a message from Lianda in pieces across the landscape. Hrafn and Levi Prassus, along with Clementine, sought out the divine writings and used them to drive the Ruinous taint from Alexius's soul and restore his flesh - though the experience left him weak and cut off from his holy powers.

### **Redeemed**

Tormented by the creature that still lurked within his mind, wracked with guilt over its actions, and disconnected from his goddess, Alexius had trouble sleeping for the next week; to make matters worse, he was forced to expel Clair from the League after revelations that she had tortured Jo'v's resident banker.

When ominous fortune readings brought adventurers out in force once again, Alexius returned to the Camp of Light to discover if there was anything he could do to redeem himself and reconnect to Lianda - whereupon the camp was attacked by warriors of Shadow seeking an unholy relic. When Clementine fell, Alexius remembered the one piece of holy power still in his possession - an item known as the "Crown of the Martyr". Sacrificing his own life force to heal Clementine was a selfless enough act to reignite his divine powers, and he spent the remainder of the day helping Jo'v reclaim Tavern Town from a conspiracy of con artists. Later, in his dreams, he finally imprisoned the Hellspawn within a dark corner of his psyche - for good, he hoped.

As an infernal tide swept across Guardian Vale at the Narga's command, Alexius and Clementine allied with the Camp of Light to oppose Shadow's predations. Armed with the sword of Maxwell Eisenhorn and a new oath that permitted him to defend himself and others, Alexius and the League (with new member Bard Silverstone) battled Gideon's forces, winning numerous victories; they also rescued Duran Greyhand from his shifter friend Sonya Skadisdottir, who had gone feral. During a tournament held by the Murethi mage Atlas J. Hawk, Alexius and Clementine slipped away to help the Guardians claim the Weft stone - though they were, to their dismay, ultimately unable to prevent unscrupulous adventurers from selling Gideon enough blood to appease the Narga.

Later, as an orcish army massed to the south, Alexius made an accord with The Guardians to join forces with the League and form a new faction: The Wardens of the Vale. He fought alongside the heroes of the Vale to defend a stricken caravan from the encroaching horde, then departed the Vale for parts unknown, promising to return when he had won "a significant ally" for the Wardens.

### **Quest for the First Shrine**

While the Vale's tribulations continued, Alexius travelled to a small church in Arkhos to seek guidance from the Golden Mother for his mysterious quest, maintaining contact with Baleyfayr via a sympathetic link between her hammer and Maxwell's sword. In Arkhos, he learned that he would have to return to a place he had hoped never to see again if he wished to continue his quest - his homeland of Thaedia.

In Solaria, Alexius rendezvoused with a group of Andariel's contacts in the hopes of gaining entry to the Collegia Celestia, which had information on what he sought - the very first shrine erected to Lianda. Unfortunately for him, he discovered that the shrine was located in a region of the Inner Weft of which his estranged father, Titus Petillius Cato, had the one and only map.

After confronting his father and obtaining the map, he returned to the Vale at the beginning of 648 MR, with the aim of gathering supplies and bodies for an expedition to the Demonfall Reach, where the shrine was located. He was dismayed to find that former Triumvir Duran Greyhand had fallen to Shadow, but could do little about it, focusing instead on helping the forces of Light destroy a Ruinous shrine and erect an altar of their own.

Alexius journeyed into the Inner Weft with Clementine and Marinka and found the first shrine of Lianda exactly where the map said it would be. With a show of divine might, he tore open a portal to the Bright Hold, from which stepped his "significant ally", and the object of his quest - Maxwell Eisenhorn, seemingly restored to life.

### **Return to Guardian Vale**

He returned to the Vale in triumph only to discover a Ruinous vortex was draining arcane power from the region, and nobody believed the man with him was truly Maxwell. In fact, he was not - "Maxwell" was, in fact, a celestial wearing the dead saint's form. Alexius was forced to endure his loss all over again when the celestial sacrificed itself to break the vortex and return magic to the Vale.

The Blood Moon waxed once again, and Alexius found himself and the Wardens as the bulk of the diminished Camp of Light's forces against the shifter menace following a month of wild weather. The Wardens were mauled many times in their efforts (ultimately not quite successful) to recover the pieces of Haruki's altar, stolen by the shifters as they rampaged through camp.

Alexius defended Asher fiercely at her trial for the destruction of the Tipsy Pixie, and managed to help secure a verdict that, though it did not spare the fire elementari from punishment, ensured that Beetle was punished as well. Not long after, though, he fell into a long sickness and delirium as true demons invaded the Vale, and lay sweating in his bed as he scrawled Celestial writings all over the walls of his tent in his fevered dreams.

As he recovered, Alexius began translating his own scribblings, and found an ominous warning of madness and Ruin, coupled with dreams of black fire and mad cackling. While the Vale's various factions squabbled over casks of ale, he set out to decipher the meanings of images written on Tavern Town's walls by crazed seers - and to exact penance on Clair for corrupting Clementine in his absence.

When the mad horde came to Guardian Vale, Alexius fought against them as best he could, including trying to protect a mysterious monk who seemed to have something to do with the mad Valkyrie. Unfortunately, his efforts were of little help preventing the destruction of Light's forward camp, and the threat only abated once shifters tore the poor monk to shreds, thus laying low the Valkyrie as well. Afterwards, with the Hellspawn in his mind flexing against its chains, he decided a pilgrimage to Lo'Quai was in order, to spend some more time away from the Vale and all its chaos.

### **False Face, False Heart**

Alexius returned from his pilgrimage claiming he had managed to shrive his soul of the lingering Ruinous magic left behind by Strigos, and following Latrine the Crone's disastrous wedding, was among those who helped subdue tavern guard Hamr in his crazed shifter form. Those who watched him closely, however, may have noted him speaking to an unusual number of people in Tavern Town and Shadow - and noted a few peculiarities about the way he was acting.

After Haruki's capture at Shadow's hands, a depleted Camp of Light struggled to find the key and map to the cell where the Sentinel was being held. Alexius seemingly led the charge, along with several of his allies in Light, but their efforts were frustrated at every turn - almost as if they were being sabotaged from within.

The hideous truth revealed itself not long after: the man everyone had presumed was Alexius was an impostor, a copy created by a corrupted fungal entity in the Inner Weft to infect and replace key figures within the Vale and feed on their dreams. The spore-creatures revealed themselves with a hideous chorus of shrieks, demanding the remaining adventurers submit themselves to their "mother". Though they made the defenders fight for every inch of ground, eventually the doppelgangers were cornered in the Treelings, where the impostor-Alexius was struck down and burned, its followers falling quickly after. The abducted adventurers, including the *real*Alexius himself, were left to stagger back to their camps, exhausted and sickened from their ordeal.

## Known Associates

Andariel Ingridsen - Alexius has helped Andariel and the Camp of Light with various matters since arriving in the Vale, not least of which the exorcisms of Tempus and Fen'hyrel from the bodies of Hrafn and Kochab.

Clair Nuire - One of the first people Alexius met when he arrived in Guardian Vale, the two were frequently spotted together until she betrayed him to Lord Strigos, at which point their relationship took a decided turn for the worse. The final straw came when she abducted and tortured an innocent woman, whereupon he expelled her from the League and cut off all contact.

Clementine - The wood elementari mage is a loyal member and fellow triumvir of the Wardens, and Alexius considers her a friend.

Dillia Baleyfayr - One of the first people Alexius met when he arrived in Guardian Vale, he is often seen behind her shield. The two had a falling-out over Alexius' use of arcane magic, but have since made amends. Baleyfayr is now a member of the Triumvirate that leads the Wardens.

Duran Greyhand - While Duran was the third triumvir of the Wardens, Alexius and the dwarven healer maintained a good working relationship and often saw eye-to-eye. Since the dwarf's fall from grace, Alexius has resolved to guide him back to the right path.

Gideon - Though as a Nephilim, Gideon's unholy presence is anathema to him, Alexius has been willing to work with the Voice of Ruin against external threats (namely Strigos).

Hrafn - Visited the same cobbler as Alexius before he arrived in the Weft. Though Hrafn defected to Gideon, Alexius formed a cautious alliance with him to oppose Lord Strigos and stop the beast of Guardian Hill from awakening. He later helped the half-elf regain his own body after exorcising the demon Tempus from it, and Hrafn helped him in turn by finding the means to restore his form after he was corrupted by Strigos.

Jo'v - Has occasionally been employed by the Taverner in scholarly matters, and works with him to thwart Lord Strigos and keep Guardian Hill's beast quiescent.

Levi Prassus - As she is a fellow nephilim of Lianda, Alexius considers Levi something of a sister, and has mentored her in the healing arts. Levi was instrumental in reversing the hideous transformation inflicted on Alexius by Lord Strigos.

Maxwell Eisenhorn - Despite the rivalry between Arkhos and Thaedia, the two became close friends, and Alexius often counselled Maxwell on matters of diplomacy. Sadly, their friendship was cut short when Maxwell was murdered by Lord Strigos, leaving Alexius in charge of the League.

Schardaken MacCrae - Alexius allied the League with House MacCrae, though tensions surfaced in the alliance due to a spat between Schardaken and Baleyfayr, as well as MacCrae's possession of a Ring of the Slaver - an item anathema to everything Alexius and his mother stand for. When MacCrae joined with Raven Company to form the "House of Ravens", Alexius considered the House no longer to exist and thus the alliance to be null and void.