Elion Auster

General Traits
Full Name: Elion
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Class & Species: Cleric 4, Owlin
Alignment: Neutral Good
Faith: Imperial Amalianism (Aelaros)

Appearance
Height: 157cm
Weight: 40kg
Eyes: Blue
Skin: Feathered
Hair: Brown/White

Personality
personality

Ideals
Strength Is The Act of Trying: A coward is one who won't try. Forward motion is sacred and it is that movement in spite of adversity that proves true character.
Redemption is Earned: For sin, there is penance and likewise for failure. Giving out forgiveness, no strings attached is a fool's errand.
Guide The Lost: The strong should carry the weak. For no reason other than to ensure none are left behind. Some need help on their first steps after choosing to follow their path. They have done the hard part. They are owed help now.

Flaws
Guilt-Driven: With how recent the wounds are from his encounter by the neck, Elion is still struggling with the impact of that. He's become a harsher self-critic and can fixate on what he did wrong
Hesitant to Rest: Fuelled by paranoia which has only since become heightened with recent events, Elion can sometimes be too caught up with what could happen or what he needs to be wary of to realise how important sleep or rest really is in the moment.
Judgemental: While he often won't voice this judgement if it's being made of things like children or the sickly, he can be heavily judgemental of perceived cowardice. Holding others to the unrealistic standards that he is hurting himself by abiding by.

Biography

The Auster family had a fairly local prestige. Originally clerics and priests of Aelaros, it wasn’t until his father, Thalen, had found himself shepherding a group of refugees to their small hometown through a dire storm that they began to take on a secondary role as guides. 2 years after this, Elion was born.

The young boy grew up in Caerlin, a respectable little town in the Southwest of the region, just above the River Stenn. By this point, his parents were doing fairly well, charging a modest fee to ferry tradesmen and travellers alike across the River Stenn. With many of said traders doing their runs back and forth between Bornholm, the young Elion ended up picking up the language. His understanding of it comes out to being just about fluent. Still, the Austers were primarily priests and, as such, most of his time was spent in the church.

His duties, as a child, primarily consisted of bringing around the donation bucket after sermons or helping prepare any rites. His father generally was the one teaching him scriptures while his mother (Seret) was in charge of guiding him through the process of Rites. It was all, naturally, quite boring for a child, especially when members of the church would talk to him about how brave his parents were, or when the travellers that were hanging around town were laughing and talking about the epic feats his mother had performed to get them to safety. Still, he knew that he’d be able to join in one day, just not yet.

It wasn’t until he was 14 that his parents decided he would be able to handle it. You see, in order to be able to actually consistently brave the harsh conditions they often did, they both had to train their clerical practices. By this point, Elion had learnt enough of the priestly aspect to where he could fully focus on drawing something further from those scriptures and rites. Within the next 2 years, the young boy had finally grown past sporadic instances of magic and gotten it under some modicum of control. In essence, he had started to become a cleric, a level 0.5 sort of.

Up until he was 22, he carried on working with his parents, slowly growing more accustomed to and fluent with magic. Which words carried the greatest power, which prayers he could always fall back on. Still, while all of this had been going on, there had been developments across the Stenn, a trading group had invested in a toll bridge (free for their own company of course) but still quite cheap. While slightly more dear than the guidance that the Austers offered, the risk that came with that rather than simply paying a toll led many of their former patrons and partners to turn away. By the end of the year, it was a charity service once more, aimed rather to help wayward travellers than to fund a church through service to the wealthy. With demand fading, there was very little need for 3 clerics anymore.

The family talked about this, quite extensively in fact. The toll bridge had calmed conditions down thanks to less traffic and more development though even if they should worsen, the two of them would still be able to handle it. Combine that with Elion’s wish to actually explore more of the Empire, to face the unknown and keep helping travellers, a consensus was ultimately reached and, at the age of 24, the young Owlin would finally decide to leave. He’d heard a few times from those coming in from the South that a place called ‘The Neck’ was a particular pain to cross for many. Around Verdantine somewhere.

So, with a destination in mind, his father’s walking staff and an amulet from his mother, he began heading South. The journey took about a year, littered with small city and town stops born from curiosity. The Fallows were just different enough from home to make him stop for a few days at most cities he came across. He’d sit in for sermons for other aspects of Amalia, he’d help set up festivals or charity events if they were going on, he’d help with any wounded (mostly within the countless military bases in the Fallows and even go off track to escort travellers around. By the time that he actually reached The Neck, he’d earnt himself a decent name around the Fallows. Not a well-known one but those who did know it thought well of him.

He’d spend around the next 9 years doing much the same job that he did before, but now at The Neck. During this time, he’s been home twice and even visited Corumir once although he found that rather a bit much. Things were fairly mundane, with the odd bout of rough conditions although he managed to handle them well enough. When things became truly a problem was when the undead started to appear.

One normal trip, a group of travellers, elves. It was their home, he’d long been told how elves were treated in Verdantine. They made up most of the people he brought across the neck. Most didn’t want to return home although there was little other place for them. Still the little he could do in not charging them felt like something. The sun had just set as they put the river just over the horizon. He was due to part ways in roughly another mile, close enough to the paved roads. He was at the front of the pack. A vanguard he had thought, any threats would have to come through him first surely. That fantasy was quickly dispelled by the scream behind him. Something shambling, rotting, tearing at a mother. More appeared, some armed, some biting and clawing. Some tried to fight but were too malnourished to give any real resistance. The numbers and brutality of the ambush were far too much for Elion, despite trying his hardest and vanquishing some of the creatures, he was ultimately left to flee, only able to bring one child with him, struck by an arrow yet still alive by a miracle, a young elven boy named Florent.

He managed to land in the next town, Florent being taken in hurriedly. The boy was saved though the two haven’t met since he was handed over to the medical staff. Returning to The River the next day, the young Owlin was met with a very haphazardly set up outpost. He had greatly overslept due to difficulties getting to bed after that night’s events and as such, wasn’t out early enough to avoid the quarantine, as they had told him. Especially after he admitted having had encounters with the undead, he was turned away, forced to walk that same trail, past the spot where the bodies had been. Odd they had been cleaned so quickly. He liked to think that the soldiers had done it, rather than the more grim alternative.

Now unable to act as a guide, stuck in an unfamiliar land and with guilt gnawing at him, news of the Unbound came like a miracle. Soldiers, people fighting the undead, a chance for food and board; all he need do to earn that was fight. Fight those… things? It was too good to be true all things considered, a distraction, an outlet, a chance to try and redeem himself.