Pashani
Graveson
Alkenstar may be the most well-known settlement in the
Mana Wastes but it’s not the only one. A handful of lone homesteads and small
villages dot the blasted wasteland. Many of these villages don’t even have a
name. The residents of these places are hiding from something or descendants of
those who have run, everyone an outcast of some sort.
In one of these over glorified mud holes lived Hamanbari
Screamingfall formerly of Rahadoum. Hamanbari fled with his wife from the
atheistic county and its pure legion for the crime of having faith. Taking
Sarenrae into his heart, the true believer was also a minister to a small
secret flock of worshipers of the Dawnflower. He became little more than a
subsistence farmer trying to survive the horrors of the Mana Wastes.
Blessed with one boy already when Hamanrabi found his
wife pregnant again, this time with twins, the Garundi man was overjoyed. With
three sons his family could make something more of the piece of land they had
claimed near a small village. The midwife, also a medicine woman, was not so
optimistic and told Hamanbari that something would go wrong with the birth. She
told him she could feel it in her bones.
When the twins arrived one of them was still born, or so
the midwife said. What really happened was the witch woman sensed a great evil
in the child and strangled it with its own umbilical cord. The body of the
nameless child was laid to rest in the ground behind the small farm house.
Late In the evening of that first night, after his wife
had cried herself to sleep, Hamanbari heard crying coming from outside. He
followed the sound toward the small grave, thinking of course he was just
imagining it in his grief. When he arrived at the burial site of his stillborn
son, the child was laying atop the mound and crying to the heavens, beside a hole from
which he must have dug his way out of the ground. Hamanbari
considered this a great miracle and the work of Sarenrae for his
dedication.
Sarenrae, however, could not always look out for the family
and the Mana Wastes are a dangerous place. Hamanbari died during an attack by
one of the many mutated creatures that roam the wastelands. The three brothers
Omanju, and the twins Neshari and Pashani moved with their mother to the city
of Alkenstar. The boys’ mother, Immari, died a year later on the exact same day
as their father, which also coincided with the birthday of the twins.
Omanju was young, but old enough to care for his young
brothers. Taking up the dedication and faith of his father he worked at the
church of Sarenrae and felt the touch of the Dawnflower in his heart. His
training as a cleric left ample time for the twins to get themselves into trouble.
The other priests always chalked it up to boys being boys.
Neshari was bright, some would say a genius, but more
than a little naïve. Pashani on the other hand had problems keeping his numbers
and letter straight, but he could still talk his twin into doing anything. The
two seemed to always be up to something although Neshari usually received the
blame as there was no way Pashani could come up with such ideas. As they aged
Neshari’s intelligence caught the eye of Aleknstar City’s wizard and he began
training, leaving Pashani the only brother without a path to the future.
Pashani continued to cause trouble through the city,
although being a simpleton got him off the hook for most of it. What most
people didn’t notice was the maliciousness in the young man’s eyes. One might
even say the things he did were downright evil, but it was always brushed off,
as he was perceived as too addle-brained to know better. His masterpiece was
convincing a city guardsman that he should kill the man who had eyes for his
wife. He would have gotten away with it as well, if his own twin had not seen through his charade.
Neshari helped capture his brother and helped the courts
convict him of numerous crimes on the promise Pashani would be held as insane.
This was a betrayal that Pashani would never forget, could never forgive.
Swearing revenge, Pashani knew his time in prison would be short. He had
secrets that even his twin didn’t know. Pashani had survived birth because he
was ridden by a demon servitor of the mighty lord Shax. He had command of
mystical abilities he never revealed that allowed him to twist the minds of
others. His blood coursed not just with the taint of the abyss, but with the wild magic of the Mana Wastes
imparted by being buried in its soil.
Pashani bode his time in the insane asylum, surprisingly
finding a like mind sociopath in one of the other inmates. When the time came
he and his lover Isham Stoat, a multiple murderer, walked out the institution’s
front door. They left a trail of dead guards and orderlies in their wake before
vanishing into the city with plans to one day even the odds with Pashani’s
twin.
This is the tale I came up with, but what was your tale?
Who was this man? What are his goals? Why does he do what he does? Tell us your
tale in the comments.
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