Aurelias

Information

Player: muhaha8

Character Full Name: Aurelius Calethos

Character In-Game Name: Aurelius

Nickname(s): N/A

Association(s): The Burning Legion, The Solheim Society

Race: Human

Class: Fel Sworn, Cleric of the Burning Legion

Age: 72

Sex: Male

Hair: Aurelius is bald; in fact, hairless all over.

Eyes: Hazel

Weight: 170 lbs.

Height: 5’ 7”

Appearance

Usual Garments/Armor: Aurelius hasn’t shed the white robes of his days within the Church of the Holy Light yet, and it’s doubtful he ever will. The robes are a relatively pure shade of white, with ornaments stitched on at very regular intervals. He wears shoulderpads made of layered cloth, and thick cloth gloves, as well. The hood he wears covers almost all of his face, leaving just a small area open through which he can see.

Personality

Aurelius is a very fatherly figure. Those close to him will discover themselves to be drawn into his arms, his doting personality encompassing them fully. He does his best to guard those he holds dearly like this, though this comes as a reflexive thing resulting from the believed death of his entire family. The sentiment was only reinforced upon realizing the death of his son was final and happened much more recently than he ever believed. He holds himself still as a fairly patriarchal figure, having never left that aspect of his former life behind.

However, as the years went on and he slowly pushed himself away from the Fel that had once encompassed him, he inevitably fell back into its grasp. He fell deeper into a depravity he had never before experienced in his earlier years practicing Fel, this time falling under the protective wing of the Legion’s Shivarra. The pious nature he gained from a decade in the Priesthood maintained, though it certainly warped and twisted into something disturbing and worse. Gone was the kind-hearted individual who acted so toward all; it was replaced by a ruthless, eccentric figure loyal only to the Legion’s wishes, and to those of its associates.

Since his joining of the Solheim Society, his loyalty extends to its members, as well as his twisted, fatherly protection.

History

Aurelius was born to the long line of the Calethoses. His father was Lord before him, and his father before him. It was in their blood to rule, and Aurelius was the eldest of he and his. The family line was filled with demonic magic for several generations, and Aurelius was initiated into this line from a very early age. He spent his early years – from about the age of seven – studying all sorts of things to give him a well-rounded education. He learned to read and write, to debate and calculate math, as well as to philosophize and some mild science-work. However, the true focus was always placed upon the darker magical arts.

Aurelius spent his teenage years engaging in typical boyish activities. Being the eldest, he spent much of his time teaching his younger brothers the tricks of the trade. He taught them to fight roughly and to hunt, as well as to build small things and nick-knacks. He taught them what he learned by trial and error, and what the tutors back at the Manor Calethos would never teach them by themselves. To his father, and the rest of the family, it was useless information. While Aurelius himself never used it, it gave his youngest siblings the push they needed to persevere and survive the grueling training they had to in order to enter the Azerothian Knighthood, a common path for second-born noble sons. The Lord Calethos at the time often looked down upon Aurelius, not understanding his desire to engage in such things; after all, he has a much greater purpose to fulfill than to simply beat up his brothers and fight the servant-boys. But, the Lord Calethos endured his son’s actions, realizing it best to simply allow him to work it out of his system at that point in time.

By the time Aurelius was twenty, the Lord Calethos was already aging, and sought to secure the future of his family, and strengthen Aurelius’ claim to the Lordship. This meant marriage, and the woman selected for Aurelius came from the House Brassington, of the distant Kingdom of Gilneas. The eldest sister of the twins Geoffery and Jeremy Brassington, Eliza, was chosen to be the wife of Aurelius, after much negotiation between the two families. The Lord Brassington was never pleased with the idea, but with the extinction of his militaristic house on the horizon if he did not adapt and try to move forward, he had no choice but to move forward with the marriage, so that his family might survive.

When the Lady Eliza was brought to the Manor Calethos, she proved to be a lively creature, one that intrigued the young Aurelius greatly. He found her to be an attractive woman, even if only for the challenge to his desire for authority he felt. He had a difficult time exerting his will over her and, ever a man for the hunt and a challenge, trying to bend her to his will took up much of his time. It kept him occupied, as well, while the Lord Calethos prepared for his eldest son’s ascension to Lordship. He began preparing the family’s wealth and building up the business to survive any of his son’s early blunders, as well as propping up the family’s relations with the Stromgardian House Winthrope, as well as the wealthy mining family, House Blackstone. It took several years to settle the business, but he finally brought it all to as good a conclusion as he could.

The demise of Lord Calethos came as a shock to everyone, and months—if not years—before the family was ready for a new Lord to ascend. The stress of his father’s sudden, unexplained death, as well as his forced early ascension to Lordship, compounded further with the discovery that the new Lady Eliza Calethos was with child, proved to be too much for the young Lord. He was barely present at his father’s funeral, and quite emotionally dead during the ceremony to name him Lord of House Calethos.

The first year of Aurelius’ Lordship was filled with strife and turmoil, highs and lows, stress and joy. His first son, Aulten, was born during that year, the family shipping business—which supplied much of its wealth—underwent some severe losses, and he was under attack for a perceived incompetence in the House of Lords. He struggled as best to keep his family afloat during that time, and barely survived. When the House came out the other side, it coasted on a sort of Golden Age for several years

The first straw toward pushing Aurelius over the proverbial cliff came when news was received that a portal had opened in the south, with green monsters pouring forth from its depths, from a world unknown. The Kingdom of Azeroth tried its best to defeat its enemies, but when no help arrived from the north, the nation eventually crumbled, leaving its people fleeing northward, into Lordaeron. Aurelius, at this point, loaded as much of his family’s wealth onto its ships as he could, and sailed north with his family. They settled with the Winthropes who, as payment, demanded that Aurelius marry his eldest son to their eldest daughter when the two came of age. Aurelius reluctantly agreed to the deal, which neither his son Aulten or their daughter Aemilia seemed to like at the time. When the two turned fifteen, they were married, regardless of their opinions on the matter.

During the first year of his presence in Stromgarde, Aurelius made one of perhaps his greatest mistakes, deep in the mountains of Stromgarde’s northern lands: he chose to try to emulate the demon-summoning magic he saw the green beasts performing in the now-ruined Kingdom of Azeroth. It was a mistake that would cause the eventual demise of his family, and that of the Winthropes. The beast he and some of his younger, more magically-inclined siblings brought forth was something they could not control. It declared itself to be of the Burning Legion, and told that it would see this world burn under the Destroyer’s might, after it turned the men and women before it into its personal thralls.

Those that resisted the six-armed beast’s desires were slain, eventually leaving Aurelius and two of his dozen siblings and relatives alive. The three were spared, under the premise that they would serve “The Lord” well, as they were the strongest amongst those present. Aurelius quietly agreed to serve, as did his two younger brothers. They were told that, when their time had come, they would be called upon to do “The Lord’s” bidding in due time, as the six-armed beast said it. The beast vanished, leaving the three to frantically come up with an explanation for the deaths, and haul the corpses back to Manor Winthrope. It was blamed on a rather large group of bandits, and a search was sent out. Nothing was ever found hinting to a bandit hide-out, and whispers among the Stromgardian nobility could be heard in the back-rooms of noble homes across the northern reaches of Stromgarde.

It was not long before Aulten and Aemilia had come of age, and were married in the Winthrope family home. Little was done in the way of public celebration, however, and the incident went fairly under-discussed amongst the noble families around the region. When the Orcs were sighted across the Thandol Span, moving ever northward in the year or so after the wedding, panic ensued amongst the people of Stromgarde. It was during this time that the Manor Winthrope was raided and burned to the ground. Aulten, Aemilia, her mother, and his aunt were trapped in the stone basement, while Aurelius stayed above to attempt to give the family time to escape. He and the Lord Winthrope struggled to defend the manor long enough for the young ones to escape, but when the first torch was thrown, they all knew it was over. The home began to burn, and Aurelius did his best to push his family out in time before the building collapsed. He never saw them again, nor they him; to each, the other was dead, as far as they knew.

The last moment of memory during that day, for Aurelius, was the house collapsing. He saw Lord Winthrope get crushed beneath a falling beam, his head shattering like an egg dropping to the floor. Fire and blood was everywhere; the last moment of consciousness came when he was struck over the head by a burning-hot pot as he attempted to force out any survivors from the kitchen area. After that, everything went black.

When he awoke, he was in intense agony. He could not speak, and he could hardly move, but all he wanted to do was scream through the pain. He had no idea how he had survived, but he saw several others from inside the home. None of them survived their wounds, yet somehow the Lord Calethos had made it through. He took his survival as a curse for his actions in the mountains that fateful evening, and went in and out of a feverish coma for several weeks.

The men taking care of him were, for all intents and purposes, brigands. They had deserted when the Orcs came into Stromgarde, and had stumbled across the smoldering remains of Manor Winthrope, he later learned. Amongst them were no clerics or healers, only one man who was trained in rudimentary medicine. It was sheer luck the archaic practices of medics in the area hadn’t killed him, but he didn’t count his survival amongst his blessings. His wounds scarred, leaving burn scars across his body, including his head and face. After five weeks of recovery, he regained enough strength to begin to move around slowly. He heard by word of mouth the official news of what had happened in Manor Winthrope: the Orcs had sent a raiding party to pillage for supplies, and then burn the home to the ground. He was silently filled with anger and outrage at the lie. The truth, which he knew all-too-well, was that it had been human soldiers that burned down Manor Winthrope, likely troops hired by the other local nobles in an attempt to rid themselves of the Calethoses and the now-tainted Winthropes, as they saw it. They were almost completely successful, as he saw it.

Eventually, the brigands found themselves raiding a camp of what appeared to be purely Clerics on the road. What they did not count on was the presence of five Silver Hand Paladins amongst their ranks, which quickly decimated the numbers of the brigands. The Paladins found Aurelius stowed away in the back of a wagon the brigands had with them, and immediately took the still-wounded man back to camp with them. The Clerics did their best to heal his wounds, but the weak Aurelius asked that they leave his scars. He never explained to them the purpose of such an action, but he didn’t care what they thought of his request, so long as they fulfilled it. They healed his wounds to the point that they would not hinder him, and left most of the scarring behind, partially due to being unable to effectively heal it all by themselves.

After some time of wandering, the group found themselves at Stratholme’s gates. Aurelius had come to appreciate the company of his newfound friends, despite his better judgment. They held none of the disdain he had for himself, and their warm words were a welcome reprieve from the constant monologue of self-hate inside his head. After all, in his eyes, he had caused the death of everyone he still knew to be alive at that point in time. He felt genuinely happy around these men, and eventually approached the lead Cleric of the party about joining his order.

It did not take long before the truth of Aurelius’ past came to light with the Church of the Holy Light, which quickly adapted him to perform a very specific, unique role. His knowledge and history were quickly put to use by his Bishop, forming an organization starting with him beneath that Bishop, in an attempt to corner a well-needed market that was already filling up: those who would use the knowledge of the Warlocks against them in hunting them. While he was certainly not the first of everyone to take up this role, he was the first of his Bishop’s organization to do this. As well, Aurelius saw it as a viable way to atone for his past sins, and redeem himself.

Aurelius performed this duty for many years, becoming slowly disheartened with the increasing deep-rootedness of the Warlock covens in Lordaeron. It was as though the people didn’t care that demon-worshipping monsters were in their midst. He didn’t want to fight to save them any longer, but he had no choice in the matter. He had to defend them, even if they were complacent, and he did his best to uphold his duty to them. He chose to keep his emotions bottled up on the subject, not explaining his feelings to any of his superiors or his followers. Instead, he made the mistake of letting them fester inside until the ultimate boil-over point.

The ease with which the Scourge was able to overtake Lordaeron left Aurelius shaken and rather crushed. Unable to do anything to stop it—partly due to the peoples’ acceptance in many areas, partly due to the fact he had too few men under his command—he fled from the area before he was sucked into the Scourge himself. During this time, he started suffering from terrible nightmares on the rare occasions he slept. The beast from his past came back to him in his nightmares, telling him that the time for his service to “The Lord” was close at hand. He suffered from these terrors for months on end, until the creature arrived at his doorstep once more.

At the time, he was living in the wilds of the now-ruined Stromgarde, doing his best to survive alone without being seen. His followers had, by this point, either been abandoned in the night by Aurelius, with deep regret upon knowing what their likely fate was, or simply slain and raised by the Scourge. It was a week after he abandoned his last follower that the creature showed up once more. It told him that the Burning Legion was returning to Azeroth and, whether he wanted to or not, he would assist in its return. The Priest tried his best to resist, but was stricken down much faster this time than the last. He was dragged off to be finally turned to the Legion’s side, a process taking several weeks of agonizing torture by the six-armed creature. When Aurelius finally broke and began to accept the Legion as his new masters, the creature revealed itself to be one called a Shivarra, a member of the Legion’s priestly class. He was quickly fed the creature’s blood, revealed to be a she now, in an attempt to finalize his attachment to the Legion. His purpose as one to convert and support the mortal forces of the Legion was explained before his new mistress set upon her way, directing him to travel southward, to his rebuilt former kingdom.

Aurelius wandered for some time, doing his best to convert those that could help the Legion in its efforts. He gathered many followers, who were scattered to the winds by his mistress, to perform various duties. However, when the Legion failed to succeed in its invasion, ending with the death of Archimonde at the World Tree, he went into hiding. He waited for the time when his mistress would see him act once more.

That moment came at the beginning of the War against the Lich King in the frozen north. He traveled to the continent and quickly blended in with the Argents, positing himself as a simple Priest. The organization, while slightly wary, accepted him for the time being. He eventually discovered the organization started by one Lucius Solheim in the Argent Tournament Grounds, and began to shack up with it, under the guise that the poor Warlocks of the group needed to see the ways of the Light, even if they maintained their practice of Warlockery.

When the War was over and the Society attempted to continue its actions, he shuddered as it was forced back into obscurity, despite its apparently good intentions. He followed a small portion of the group into hiding, returning to Stormwind. He heard rumors of his son's survival on his way south, and rejoiced greatly at the possibility of a member of his family surviving to this day. Perhaps, even, he could convert his long-lost son to the Legion. However, when he went back to the land where Manor Calethos once stood and found only a smoldering wreck with a hastily-dug grave in front, he expected only the worst: his own son's demise, though he did not know how, or even pretend to know. Such was his final breaking point. Disgusted with what society had done to he and his, he left, seeking out the comfort of an old associate of the Society: Marianna Bisen. He followed his former cohorts, also a Fel Sworn of the Legion, believing it best to remain close to those who held his beliefs. When he heard of the Solheim Society’s reformation, he quickly joined it, hoping to use it as a platform to convert more to the side of the Legion this time, with the goal of ushering in the eventual end of Azeroth through the Legion’s next coming.

Skills and Abilities

Aurelius’ abilities are primarily focused on bolstering his allies and weakening his foes, though he certainly would not be a trifle to deal with in direct combat. He is capable of releasing an ally’s pent-up rage, amplifying it exponentially and sending them into a berserker rage. He can, as well, target his foes with auras that damage their will to fight. One of his primary defensive spells for dealing damage dredges up the worst memories buried inside them, forcing them to relive the pain of the event. It causes the target damage psychologically, weakening them as well to his allies’ assaults. As well, it gives him an opportunity to escape if need be, his foes distracted with their most painful memories. In last-ditch scenarios, he can let loose a sort of psychic screech, causing pain and suffering to any enemy that is not prepared for such a thing.