Quartz 5

Ismareldor

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tagsnpc, legend

3 min read

Ismareldor

Ismareldor, the Crimson Knight, is remembered in legend as a dark knight who craved ruin - but the truth, set down by Najin Delinqa, is the tragedy of a man who began as a warrior of the light and ended very nearly damning the world.

The Making of a Paladin

Ismareldor grew up the only son of a devoted mother in a small fishing village on the White Sea of the Lexallian Republic; his father had died before his birth. At sixteen, a pack of gnolls attacked him and two friends, and a passing paladin saved their lives. That paladin became a foster-father to him, filling him with tales of the endless war against the monster-plague, and Ismareldor took up the same calling - to avenge the monsters that had ravaged his home. His mentor’s uncompromising zeal shaped him into a gifted but extreme warrior.

He joined the knightly order of the White Wardens and rose swiftly as a fighter and strategist, though his totalist approach bred friction. Defending a village one day, he chose to strike directly at the monsters rather than evacuate the people - the beasts died, but more civilians fell than usual. The order stripped his knighthood and cast him out in disgrace, for risking innocents on “a slim chance of glory and revenge.”

The Doom Banishers

Exiled, Ismareldor wandered, gathering followers who shared his belief that monster-hunting must be more aggressive. Crossing the scorched ruins of Loreshia - a land broken by demon-cults since the first Fiend Flood - he resolved to shift his war from killing monsters to shielding the world from the demons behind them. His following took the name the Doom Banishers.

In his searching he learned much of demons and their origin (the tales agree on a meeting with the Mother of Monsters, Angrboða/Echidna), and he came into possession of one of history’s great relics - the Ring of Unshackled Desire. Whatever the Ring showed him gave his wandering purpose: he found a ritual meant to free the prisoners of Tartarus and turn them against the demons - perhaps even to destroy Mictlan itself. Noble in aim, catastrophic in risk: Ismareldor was no great mage, and he meddled with powers far beyond him.

Globrax and Raven

Seeking the ancient red dragon Globrax for reasons unknown, Ismareldor nearly died - and was saved at the last instant by a passing stranger, Raven, who punched the great dragon to defend a man in peril. So he was rescued by the very person who would become his greatest foe. They travelled together for a time, then parted; but when Raven learned the full danger of his plan, she turned to stop him.

The Great Confrontation

Hunted across the world - undone at last when Bonias Dyne located him through fifty scrying orbs at the cost of both his hands - Ismareldor met Raven’s alliance at the plains of Pelgarath. There his ritual was disrupted: the gate he tore open to Mictlan turned on him, and that plane’s demons took him to be tortured. It was a tragic end for a man who tried to do right and chose a terrible road.

Appendix

See Also

Sources & Attribution

  • Primary lore: content/Books/Raven A Critical Look (English).md (Najin Delinqa, GUNAM); also content/Books/Regalia of the Empire.md, author TrueMichato.

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