Quartz 5

Dranan Horbit

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Dranan Horbit

Dranan Horbit is a young paladin of Forseti, the first and only son of a noble family in Coldheart. His father was a paladin-knight in the church’s service and his mother kept their household. An epidemic struck the city around Dranan’s birth and killed many infants, leaving him with few companions his own age. His father eventually exposed the epidemic as the work of an evil necromancer and became a hero for ending it.

Dranan was never neglected, but his lonely childhood drew him toward nature and animals, which he respects more deeply than most people without sharing a druid’s supernatural bond. Apart from his father, the person he most admires is Astel Quori, his elderly, gruff elven diplomacy tutor. Astel was an unusual choice because he had no religious faith. Dranan’s father deliberately chose him to teach that justice, truth, and honour are universal values rather than commandments obeyed only by believers.

Dranan became a paladin at eighteen, chose a two-handed sword, and received ornate plate armour from the church. For his first mission he joined a merchant caravan crossing the mountains. People attacked it during a snowstorm; Dranan fought until he lost consciousness and awoke hours later alive beneath the snow, with the caravan wrecked and every other traveller missing.

Following their tracks, he recognised the caves where the necromancer slain by his father had once hidden. Inside, he fought the kidnappers and knocked most of them unconscious before reaching a chamber filled with cages, prisoners, strange signs, and a robed man chanting over a circle with a knife. Dranan attacked, but he was already wounded and exhausted. The man’s knife pierced his throat; Dranan’s blood spread across the symbols and completed the ritual. When he awoke, his wounds were gone and everyone else in the room was dead.

Dranan understood that his blood had activated the rite and fled rather than face his father with the deaths he believed he had caused. Since then, he has heard a beautiful voice in his mind like distant violin music, moving him almost to tears. He knows that something unnatural entered him through the ritual, but tries to deny and ignore it while seeking a way to remove it and atone.

Personality

Quiet, brooding, caring, and visibly haunted, Dranan tends to remain beside Lorian, mutter to himself, and avoid beginning conversations. He readily speaks about his childhood and family but initially says only that he travels to atone for mistakes. With enough trust, he admits what happened and explains that he wants the presence removed from his mind.

The trauma has not moved him from Forseti’s path, but his conviction that he is not good enough to be a paladin can make him unusually devout. He struggles to distinguish between helping as much as possible and staying out of situations he might make worse.

  • Ideal: Help others where I can; stay out of what I might make worse.
  • Bond: I made a horrible mistake, and can never go home.
  • Flaw: I do not believe in myself - others are better than me.

Appendix

See Also

Sources & Attribution

  • Primary lore: content/private/_originals/NPC/NPC-The Faithful Companions.md, author TrueMichato.

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