Saints of Defiance

While the God of Defiance has long acted through his many followers, granting prayers and conferring small blessings, there are a rare few that have earned the honor of Sainthood. These chosen individuals have been, almost without exception, those in the most wretched and inescapable circumstances. Slaves, serfs, prisoners, prostitutes, and worse. The defining feature of the Saints of Defiance is that they all come from only the worst conditions.

Saints of Defiance, much like the rest of his faithful, begin as those who pray to Orynn Kaskye for the freedom to determine their own fate. For the chance to be the masters of their own souls. What sets them apart is that the Saints did not wait for deliverance, but rather seized their destinies by risking everything acting out without certainty or reply. For while Orynn cares for all the oppressed and belittled he respects most those who do not need him.

These men and women who risked everything to rebel or escape have, should Orynn find them worthy, found themselves blessed by the very God who it seemed had ignored their earlier pleas. Granted exceptional power through divine artifact, blessing, or magic this is the birth of a Saint of Defiance. Throughout history the Saints have been selfish rogues, heroic liberators, and anything in between. All have been loved by their patron. As such those bent upon using their gift for others almost always attract large followings of the faithfully Defiant, as the God of Defiance sends out a call to all his faithful that a Saint has risen.

The Saints of Defiance have humbled conquerors and crumbled nations, but all but the barest few have died as martyrs. In the end, for all the blessings Orynn might heap upon them, the God of Defiance has never aided a Saint against divinity itself. Some say that is wisdom, others lament it as callousness. In the end, only Orynn Kaskye himself knows.

## Known Blessings and Artifacts

*Not all Saints have received the same gifts or blessings, but some are more common than others.*

### Blessings

#### **Defiance of Blades:**

The single most common blessing granted to Saints is the ability to withstand terrible blows. With skin like armor many Saints have been known to grasp the blades of their enemies and toss them aside in the midst of battle. Upon being blessed in this way a Saint may have skin as strong as hardwood, but only though repeated strain and damage can they attain the legendary ability to deflect lance blows with their bare skin alone.

#### **Defiance of Limits:**

One known blessing for Saints is the ability to defy their physical limitations and build their strength seemingly without limit. Though Saints blessed in this manner gain muscle like few can this alone could not possibly account for their stunning prowess. It is said that past Saints with this blessing have trained until they possessed the strength of thousands, though that may be more rumor than fact. However, like most blessings conferred to Saints, without that training or comparable struggle this is no blessing at all.

## Chronicle of Saints

*Many Saints have lived and died, and they are recorded here.*

#### **Saint Raj:**

The First Saint of Defiance, Raj, is a poorly understood individual. What is known is that he was named a Saint in the year 7 of the Imperial Calendar. From what little has been gleaned from Orynn Kaskye himself Raj was a fiercely independent man who sought to prevent the rise of any sort of King or Kingdom. In the days after the world was healed by the New Gods Raj is said to have slain his own father after the the older man sought dominion and control over the people of the continents far north through violence and coercion. Raj would, according the Empire's records, be slain in the year 38. Doubtless, he sought to stem the nascent states expansion.

#### **Saints** **Dane and Abe**

Members of the tribe of the architects who lived in the Gateway Steppes. A pair of brothers who in the Imperial year 79 overthrew the Warlord Val, a member of their tribe, after the she refused to cede power once the crises (an extra-dimensional invasion by a virulent alien biosphere) she had been elected to combat had passed. When Val, rather than relinquishing her power, instead attempted to convert the coalition of tribes she had been nominated to lead into the region's first state the brothers felt they had no choice but to act. Shortly after achieving their victory, the two came to blows over the future of the tribes, which escalated into a clash of titans as they transformed into enormous monsters using their divine gifts and multiple heavy doses of Polymorphine. The tribes of their army where shattered as their battle raged throughout their shared camp, and the survivors scattered to the four winds.

The concept of the legacy of the architects who designed the region being an identity belonging to a single tribe was destroyed by this event, while the brothers appear to have killed one another in their struggle. The bones of the monsters they became can still be found on the southern most plateau, locked in enteral combat.

#### **Saint Osaelon**

Born in 262 to the royal bloodline of the kingdom of Oraecus, prince Osaelon II was fated for a life in Uwné’s priesthood. In ages past such a destiny was considered an honor, but now in the fading years of the age of the phoenix, it meant a secluded living with little power or freedom. Prince Osaelon II instead ran away from home. Sacrificing everything he ever had in a bid to defy the order and traditions of the Crafter Kingdoms.

Official records are spotty on the exact course his life took in the earliest years of the schism. Though many scholars agree that he mostly likely began to inspire rebellion in smaller, less well off villages that felt abandoned by Uwné and his institutions. The fallen prince and his cultists proceeded to infiltrate the larger cities of his father’s kingdom through charity work. Until in 273 he re-emerged during an audience. With the surprise support of the nobility, he was able to take the throne and crown from his father and brother. Whom he sent into exile.

Through swift marriage with prince Olaeny IV he secured an alliance with the kingdom of Taelinia. It would seem that the cultist’s influence had already spread towards the forest kingdom as well. By 278 they officially declared their war upon New Tellur to dethrone Uwné as the ruler of the Crafter Kingdoms as a whole. Which resulted in the devastating siege of 279.

Saint Osaelon died in 280 during a ambush as he tried to retreat to the capital city of Oraiculos. Despite the ambush it took the combined force of the Cainites and several quest knights from Aelith to lay low the fallen prince. The Great Schism soon crumbled and the cultists were eradicated by the purge afterwards. None the less he is credited with creating the greatest amount of strife in the Kingdoms since the Age of Fire. Having caused a grievous amount of harm directly, and indirectly by weakening the Kingdoms on the eve of the second Ashlander Invasion. Many traditions changed after his rebellion, and many institutions like the Irodemia and the royal families of both Oraecus and Taelinia were shaken to their foundations.