Lorenn

## Lore

**>> A man finally accepts death with open arms, and seeks to guide others to avoid the torment he suffered.**

There once was a man, a regular man. Nothing more, nothing less. He lived a simple life. Enjoying the fruits of his labor as a humble gardener, he got married and had a daughter. Content with life, disregarding all the unnecessary frills that consumed the rest of the world.

As with all beings, the man who would become known as Lorenn passed into the realm of dead. But this natural process was not a peaceful one, far from it. Attacked and massacred by bandits and mauraders, Lorenn was torn away from his daughter through an excrutiatingly violent death.

Waking up in the realm of death, far removed from all that he knew and cared for: he anguished in his new mode of existence. Taken from his life, he tried to find a way back. Crying out for anyone else to help him return to his precious daughter, all for it to fall on deaf ears admist the other passing spirits, heading towards their own afterlives.

This harrowing anguish was nothing new to one of the fundamental aspects death, having seen many such would not accept this new mode of existence. But on this one fateful occassion, the being descended from their perch high above to silence the distraught man. Seeing a potential avenue to return to his life before, Lorenn pleaded and bargained with the aspect to return.

Having heard this all before from various others, the aspect who tells him that this is a natural state of being, acceptance is the way forward and to embrace the change. For if Lorenn could not accept the circumstances, his rage would consume him, tormenting others as collateral. The aspect told Lorenn to sit and ponder what he said, and left Lorenn in the bleak desolate field he had woken up into.

Still enraged, Lorenn sat brooding over his own thoughts watching new souls appear from the distance cloud of smog, enter the field, and proceed into the distance to their afterlives over and over. Days past and still, his silent pondering continued. Eventually, a lone child stumbled out of the mist.

Scared and alone, the terrified child walked in the field, calling out for anyone to help him. Separated from his parents by the veil of death, the boy was truly alone. Lorenn looked over his shoulder for the aspect whom had confronted him, but the aspect was nowhere to be seen. The glade simply filled with faceless beings, him, and the lost child.

Lorenn went over and confronted the small child. Drawing a parallel with him and his own child's situation, Lorenn felt sympathy and empathy at the poor child's dilemna and figured he could sit with the child until the aspect came back to whisk him out of his hands. As the days passing by turned into weeks, and weeks into months, the child began to warm up to Lorenn. This filled the man with joy and happinnes, and he figured that even if it was just by helping one small child, he could make something out of this new mode of existence.

Over time, Lorenn began to grow a small garden in the glade, drawing on his past to comfort and enterain the child. Their garden began to blossom, with Lorenn and the child, providing solace and a sense of bliss to those whom passed through into their afterlife during the brief moments of their encounter. Years later, the boy's parents would finally emerge from the mist. Seeing their son there, the family was reunited. The small boy, before parting off with his family, handed Lorenn a mask fashioned from a tree they had planted together, thanking the old man for comforting him in his dire time. Lorenn smiled and bid them all farewell, wishing them a peaceful departure into the afterlife as they passed off into death’s arms peacefully reunited once again.

The fundamental death aspect from before, then appeared from the shade of a nearby tree, congratulating Lorenn on his work. He asked Lorenn if he was ready to move on himself, now that he had come to terms with his new mode of existence. To see what laid beyond in the realm of death. Lorenn refused. He replied that he would simply chooses to maintain his garden. Guiding others beyond the purgatory he had been in since his arrival, waiting for the day he will be able to see his daughter again.

## Development Notes

* Lorenn's initial lore was one where he was more a force of nature as opposed to an actual realized character, sitting on a council of 12 other aspects of death governing the realm of the dead.
	+ The part of him tending to a garden in the afterlife with the symbolic plants was always apparent through all of his lore revisions.

## Art Gallery

KeyartDevelopment SketchesCharacter Progress