Avalar Valkerin

For the first ten years of his life Avalar knew only the order, however while some might think he would have lacked a balanced upbringing due to being unable to see the world or known the love of a parent, however this was not the case. For the order contained both male and female members which made it one of the first to do so in his realm, when this was paired with the fact that the order allowed marriage. This allowed Avalar to be adopted by two Paladin's who were unable to sire children of their own and had no qualms with his unique appearance.

So it was that for ten years Avalar enjoyed a family not of his own kind but family none the less. His upbringing was restrictive but not sheltered, as while other Paladin could freely leave and he could not. Those same Paladin would bring Avalar tales of the world beyond the order and gifts so he might sample that world, learning of it's wonders, the state of things and all the eccentricities within it.

So he grew and learned of all things, of course he began to be trained earlier than most due to being unable to leave. However his training was always informal until he came of the accepted age to begin formal training with the other children halfway through his tenth year. However he soon came to the fore of his classes due to his informal, his prowess with any blade given to him and his mastery of the Paladin spirit magic. Although the latter came as no surprise due to his mother being a mage and the traces of a male's protective magic on him when he arrived, it was however a welcome surprise that his adopted parents had a son to teach all their martial skill to.

For all had expected the magic in his blood to hold more power over him then the way of the sword. Still that had in fact changed things for Avalar due to robes only being used by those of the arcane arts. Instead as one of the Wards of the Blade Avalar was required to act as a squire to one of the senior members of the order, so that he might see the world for himself. However in his unique case they found he could not serve as a squire, as to hide his anthromorph nature he had to be clad in full armour at all times.

Instead he charged the order, asking them to set him a challenge that if he were to best would have him serve as his father's second and not a squire. As the current Champion's heard of the youth's words they saw merit in them and began to look anew at the only non-human in the order. He was a mere child and yet he spoke with wisdom, showing that he had not merely found the order as a dying grace of his mother but that he had in fact been born for the order. For a second and especially as his father's he would be sent to battles rather than around the kingdoms.

As they saw their teaching and the lessons from the first ingrained in every fibre of his body, the Champion's gave Avalar a challenge they hoped he would not fail. Avalar was challenged to face off against the current Master of Blades second, who was only five years Avalar's senior and if he could last three bouts without ceding then Avalar's request would be granted. As word filtered through all those in the order of the challenge, the whole order in residence turned out to watch.

For here was a boy showing that while he might look different he strived for no more then to do what was expected of him were he human. So it was that the challenge began and to the surprise of everyone when Avalar was knocked down in the first bout he got back up. Then again he climbed back to his feet in the second bout and when his wooden training sword broke he continued to fight in the bout. Fighting unarmed against the wooden sword he fell twice more and climbed back up each time.

Then when the third bout ended, the entire order nodded almost as one their approval of Avalar. He had shown himself worthy, however the Master of the Blade's second could see Avalar felt needlessly pitied. So he had another wooden sword thrown to Avalar and to the surprise of everyone turned out the pair continued to battle for five more bouts. Proving finally to some of those present that he was indeed worthy of being a Paladin due to not relying on his claws and body as he'd had to unarmed, which he proved beyond a doubt by managing to strike down the second showcasing that he'd learned how to fight their way. So it was that everyone saw that the boy knew the code well, he would never retreat when he was on the right path.

The boy was a Paladin already and everyone could see it, he had the respect of almost the entire order in a single day. And on that single day he made his adopted parents more proud than they had ever felt in their lives. For their son was the embodiment of everything they believed in and he had been a gift from nowhere anyone knew.

So it came to pass that for the next four years Avalar served as his father's second, his skill with weapons surpassing his talent with magic. Which continued to surprise everyone for they had known since his arrival at the order that he came from two magic lines. Regardless as his father travelled doing what was required of him, Avalar came to know his home kingdom and the kingdoms around it to a lesser extent. Although they to came to know of him as the Faceless Paladin, for they never saw him without his wolf's head helmet on and rarely for long within civilised lands. As Avalar and his father spent their time routing out evil rather than travelling across the kingdoms ensuring justice was honoured.

Still as the final year of his seconding to his father began his mother joined them and as family it seemed they had been chosen to lead a force of Paladin. His father was being tested for promotion to Champion as was Avalar to Paladin, they were to repel a necromancer's invasion on their home kingdom and do so the right way. However all was not as it had seemed, for unknown to the order one of the wards had become a student of necromancy and to secure his apprenticeship he sought to hand over the Paladins mustered against his master for turning into enthralled Fallen soldiers.

Still at first all went well the Paladin met and destroyed each trace of undead and necromantic sorcery they found. However on the eve before they were to join battle with the main force of the necromancer they were ambushed by that very force. Sold out by the fallen ward and so the Paladin's met battle during night with their undead foes all the stronger for it. As their numbers dwindled it was Avalar who rallied the remaining wards, joining battle with a beastial howl that stunned the others for.

For though all with him knew his nature they had never heard the boy make such a noise. And as the ward's failed to rally behind him for a few moments Avalar was cut off from all the Paladin. Before the others could breakthrough aid him they found it was pointless to intervene for Avalar in his moment of need proved selfless, taking upon himself from the Lady Elyna the Curse of the Winged. Tearing from his back came six wings, each coursing with energy no Paladin had been able to control since before the fallen fell.

It was however obvious to all that the boy was not ready for the Lady's gift, however he bore the divine fire as it roiled over him and as the other ward's rallied to his aid he fought with such fervour and grace that he moved as well as the veterans through the battle. As he fought he was still a child and seen as easy prey, even with the prowess of one years his elder and the ability to wield a gift reserved for the darkest of times. For even then he was still at the mercy of the necromancer when he turned his attention the whirling dervish that tore through his forces. As the battle continued all the Paladin watched with horror as Avalar fought the necromancer's magic. His wings curling around him and one of them rotting away, corrupted in form and bound to him by the very necromancy he fought.

Still he fought, staying true to all he had ever known. A sight that touched every Paladin there and on that night every Paladin on the field was selfless, the entire force took upon them the Curse of the Winged. A sight unheard since times long passed, a force of the Winged cleaving the wrong from the land. A force that flowed through combat without the slightest of deviance of faltering. No enemy was spared, no evil left to flee the field. The Paladin took the battle by land and air, with no more then a handful of losses despite being ambushed.

And then in what was an unheard of thing, the Lady took back the curse of the Winged. Protecting the true Paladins second coming from the pauseless might that made them an unstoppable force against darkness. For the curse of the Winged was that they could not rest until every taint of darkness was gone from within their senses. And she knew that was not yet possible, instead all from that night took with them the scars of the Winged as they called it. Each man and woman bore the scars where they wings had been mere moments before.

All of them bore at least one pair of scars, however some bore two sets of scars and in Avalar's case he bore three pairs of scars. He was it seemed chosen by Elyna, for only those she favoured and who had the fortitude to the Paladin way could carry the burden of six wings. So it passed that night that the Paladin surpassed all expectations and held back the growing dark that night. Though in the years that followed the curse of the Winged began to slowly return to the Order.

However, for some their victory that night was tainted, for Avalar his parents had fallen and his left hand was slowly corrupting from necromantic energy. No known magic or medicine could cure his arm, it was however possible to slow and the Order did so for him until they were finally able to arrest it's spread. After they had lifted him straight to the rank of Paladin, however, making him one of the youngest to hold that rank in the history of the order. Still from that night, Avalar went from one height to another, continuing his trend of being the code incarnate. Proving his worth to his kingdom and baring his face.

Avalar became accepted and he was no longer a secret, although he was still referred to as the Faceless Paladin. Still the years would pass. Avalar grew further still, proving himself and as his adoptive parents had before him he ascended to the rank of Champion. When as war threatened on the horizon he listened to the other champions and entered the slumber. So that he could be a symbol of hope for the order and the kingdom after this war. A reminder of how things were before it, however, that was not how events came to pass.

When Avalar awoke it was not as planned, he awoke to a cry for help from a young human boy as opposed to members of his Order. At the time though he remembered nothing of them, for the price of the slumber was a period without memories that lengthened the longer one slept. In his case his slumber was five hundred years, four hundred and fifty years longer than intended. All of which he had no idea of at the time, instead he awoke bewildered and witnessing his flesh turn from stone to flesh.

Though he all he could do was watch as the boy bleed out, having fallen into the Hall through a collapse in the ceiling. One that the memoryless Avalar climbed out of with some difficulty, only to find himself faced with a closing portal. Likely how the boy had arrived, though as it closed it began to pull at the things around it. Which included Avalar and though he struggled to free himself he was captured by it and drawn in.

Unable to save himself Avalar flew through the portal, falling through the air to land in a crumpled heap on the other side. When he awoke hours later there was no trace of the portal in the air and the land around him was filled with strange metal vehicles and structures. Confused but blissfully memoryless he explored this strange place, around him wore other anthromorphs that looked at him strangely due to his medieval appearance. Then a woman found him as he wandered in his awestruck daze as night fell, her name was Jezebelle and so took him in at her place of work. As thanks, Avalar took up bartending at Pink Bunny Studios, her place of work, and eventually, feelings formed between the pair and she revealed that she was a vampire to him.

Due to his lack of knowledge Avalar found her most interesting due to that and continued to learn about her, while he was talked into being a stand-in actor for one of the studio's films. A habit that continued until the fateful night Jezebelle and Avalar decided to turn him, in his first few weeks as a vampire Avalar began to hallucinate as the Lady Elyna tried to reach out to her lost and last Paladin. When she finally reached out to him Avalar was starting to remember snippets of his life as his memories began to return, it was during this time that Jezebelle and the Studio disappeared casting him adrift in the now even more alien time.

As his memories continued to surge to the surface and the Lady Elyna began to explain to him what he was and that while he was now tainted he was the last conscious survivor of their realm. Due to this Elyna bound herself to him as the Ascended Pantheon was dying and in return for all the excess spiritual energy Avalar didn't use the Lady Elyna manipulated his vampirism. Changing him into the progenitor of a new strain of the affliction and causing blood to aid him in generating spiritual energy at a faster rate, with his memories returned Avalar fled from modern times back to medieval realms. Learning how to trace natural portals between the realms in the process, a trick shown to him by Elyna who had used it to find him.

The two of them are the last of their realm, which was a blessing for Elyna as all other beings native to her realm had souls and only their prayers could sustain her. While Avalar generates spiritual energy and she has been able to use his excess spiritual energy to sustain herself for centuries as his realm lost itself to war and forgot the Ascended Pantheon, now with his realm destroyed the pair are more bound to one another than ever before. They found themselves wandering, until Avalar found a place know only as The Slave Market with a place known as Guilderiem and there he settled. Where slavery is commonplace, a practice that had been outlawed in his own realm but to not draw attention to himself the newly restored Paladin took to slavery to aid those he could while honouring the laws of the land and twisting their practice to work with his personal code and sworn oaths.