Lathe Nightrym

Art of Lathe, drawn by @whippedjack on Twitter

Lathe Nightrym is a Paladin for Celestian and member of the Arc 3 party. He dies during their battle against Kalazar two years before the events of Arc 3, in 131 AE.

## Description

Lathe is a Protector Aasimar and Oath of Devotion Paladin. He has slightly pointed ears and pitch black eyes with glowing constellations inside them that move as the heavens do. Lathe owns a Broom of Flying. He is faithful and travels a lot.

## Character Arc

### Life

It is Lathe who originally brings the Arc 3 party together. He travelled through the country in search for a team, and found them. For their first meeting, they just go for brunch and part afterwards, but only shortly later Lathe gets information that weird things have been happening in Yelna, so he gets the team back together and they have their first job, shown in the Arc 3 Flashback oneshot.

After this first adventure, many more follow. In this time, Lathe becomes the party member Annie Wintersummer gets closest with: they are soulmates. At one point, the two of them go into a dungeon alone together, but that is not the time Lathe dies.

The last adventure Lathe goes on with his party is an adventure to save the world. The devil lord Kalazar and his lieutenants, including Justicar, Lars, and Tybyrone, try to open a portal to Hell in the Material Plane, which would end the world as it is known.

During this adventure, the party travels together into the city of Dis, where they spend a few days, meet Ialius, and fight and defeat many of the devils together. Lathe, at this point, is at least level 13 (as he is able to cast "Find Greater Steed"). The party gets separated at least once, but for the final fight, they are all together. In this fight, Tybyrone targets Annie with a Disintegrate spell, but Lathe shoves her out of the way and gets hit in her stead. He dies, and only after that, Bombyx is able to kill Kalazar with their bow.

The three remaining lieutenants of Kalazar, Justicar, Lars, and Tybyrone, realise (or get told) that they need to get out, and flee the fight.

### Death

Because Lathe died in hell, his soul is not sorted into the correct afterlife, which would be the afterlife connected to his deity Celestian. As this becomes apparent, his soul is being put into a soul coin for easier transportation, and handed to a soulferrier named Thavius, who gets tasked with finding out where this righteous soul belongs to and bringing him there.

Inside the soul coin, timespans soon become hard to tell for Lathe. As soon as he is able to communicate with Thavius, he does so, and sends him towards the places where he left loose threads due to his untimely death, so that Thavius can finish what he started. He enjoys talking to him, and being able to help him, seeing the world, and having a chance to stay in the Material Plane for a little bit longer, even in this very limiting state of only really being conscious when Thavius talks to him.

Even though Thavius asks every time he talks to Lathe, he does not want to speak to or deliver any messages to his old friends, and tells him that he doesn't think Thavius would like to be there when they find out about the situation.

## Trivia

* Lathe was usually the one responsible for lighting up dark places for the party members without darkvision.
* Bombyx used to like watching him sleep, because Aasimar's eyes light up when they are in REM.
* Lathe's name was decided on since Arc 1.
* Gus ships Annie and Lathe and Haley tweeted about it once: Haley (@whippedjack) on Twitter: "Gus, sadly: I just want Annie and Lathe to be together! But he's DEAD!
Me: Yeah-
Gus: And Annie's not real  :(" (2021-07-08).
* Lathe is Pan (confirmed by Haley on Discord)