Aster Janus

Biography

• Born over a millenia ago, Aster Janus was inducted into the Order of Janus at the tender age of four where he was recognised for his magical talent and inducted into the Mage branch of the Order with his younger sister, Anya, joining him later on in life. At the age of 21, Aster was subjected to the Trials of Duality, the series of tests that would determine how a prospect would serve the Order of Janus. Aster passed these with flying colors, earning himself the position of Archmage of the Order, the highest office in the Order. This did not go over well.
  
  Once Aster returned from the Temple of the Duality where the Trials were held, he told his then teacher, Grand Mage Reno, of what had transpired inside the Temple. Reno was immediately perturbed and told Aster to run, run as far away as he could. Aster refused, stating that he would continue his training as the Order had cared for him and his sister when his parents couldn't. Reno then swore Aster to secrecy, ensuring that the current Archmage, Orian, would never find out the position Aster was to take. However, this did not work, for a spy had been watching and waiting for Aster's return, hurrying to inform Orian of Aster's results.
  
  Shortly after, Aster was summoned to the Hall of Truth in the Temple of Beginnings and put on trial for deceiving the Order, the court claiming he had crowed about being the next Archmage in order to boost his own stock. Aster denied the claims, stating that he completed the Trials and that the results were true. However Orian destroyed the Temple of Duality, one of the Order's Five Holy Sites, to ensure that his story could never be confirmed; thus Aster was imprisoned. For seven years, Aster sat in solitary confinement until his sister turned 21 and was taken to the Temple of Doors for her own Trials. She succeeded in her Trials and was dubbed a Grand Mage by the Order, entitling her to see her brother for the first time since his imprisonment. She visited him precisely once, explaining that she was to be performing a ritual with the other Grand Mages, including Reno. That was the last time Aster saw his sister alive.
  
  That night, Aster sensed a greater surge of Magic than he had ever done, immediately on alert as the spell was simply too strong to be anything other than a path to immortality. Breaking out of his cell, Aster hurried to another of the Temples: the Temple of the End, where he found Archmage Orian chaining each and every one of the Grand Mages to a spell that was draining their souls. Orian used his magic to then murder Anya before Aster's eyes, claiming her soul as his first. However, Aster interfered with the process, snatching the necklace from his dead sister's neck and dividing her soul into two, halting the ritual. One half remained in Orian while the other was trapped inside the necklace, which Aster took with him, leaving the Grand Mages to suffer forever in the suspended ritual, unable to return to their bodies but also unable to join Anya inside Orian. Orian attacked Aster but was swiftly overpowered owing to his weakness from the incomplete ritual. Aster made his escape and headed to the final Temple.
  
  Aster proved himself the next Archmage by opening the final Temple, the Temple of Time. It was an event that every single member of the Order felt at once, as only a true Archmage of the Order could open it. Inside, Aster found the secret to his revenge... The Immortality Engine.
  
  Angry, hurt, and completely filled with a lust for revenge, Aster attempted something only three Archmages before him had attempted. He tried to bind himself to the Engine. The attempt was interrupted however, and Aster was killed by Orian's loyalists part way through the process, the Engine still bonding with his body to grant him immortality. The Engine did not stop despite it's damage, continuing the bonding on the dead Aster until finally, he was brought back to life. Now undead, and completely pissed off, Aster carved a bloody path through the loyalists on his way out, leaving their dismembered bodies arranged in a message for Orian that simply said, "I'm coming for you." Aster then recovered his effects from the Temple of Beginnings and escaped into the wild.
  
  A thousand years have passed since that day, but Orian has never stopped hunting Aster, determined to never give up his position as Archmage and finish the ritual. Aster, meanwhile, makes his money and his mark as a bounty hunter and passive observer, giving birth to the legend of the Observer, the Prophet of Calamity that appears before such things.