The Mage-Killer of Calimport

There is an old saying, "One usually meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it." For our half-blood hero, truer words can never be said.

For as long as he can remember, Kaz Garoth has been running and hiding for the simple reason that he was different from everyone else. In a place as eclectic and varied as Calimport, the jewel port city of Calimshan, this is nothing short of a mean feat.

Born to a waitress in a little known tavern, Kaz's life should not have been anything more than normal and boring. So it came as a shock, especially to his then devoted father, that Kaz looked the way he did.

Kaz's hair was a deep dark blue, like the ocean at its most unfathomable point. His complexion was grey like cold steel, yet his body was far warmer than any living human. But of all these, the most striking infernal features of Kaz were the pair of horns jutting slightly like lumps from his forehead, and his eyes, which were two black orbs into which one can seemingly see through to the pits of the nine hells.

To say that his father was shocked and outraged at Kaz's sight would be an understatement, for he immediately hurled anything he could get his hands on: chairs, tables, bookpiles, armoires, the countless chests and barrels that littered the area, and perhaps even poor hapless Kaz had his mother not protected him.

Suspecting the mother of adultery with nothing less than an infernal fiend, Kaz's father left in a indignant huff, running out the door like a crazed dire rat that was left too long inside a locked room filled with nauseous gas. Needless to say, Kaz grew up not knowing any father. And his mother made sure that he would not miss him.

His mother loved Kaz and raised him to be a good and law-abiding Calishite. She taught him the value of tolerance and hard work. She taught him that despite his appearane and lineage, he had a choice to face life's harsh realities with a pure soul and an indomitable principle, even if doing the good thing did not always get rewarded. Kaz seemed to understand, for even at such a young age, he has shown an uncannily astute mind.

All the while, she did her best to shield him from prying and prejudiced eyes. Every so often, she dyes his hair black, covers him in tanning salve, and makes sure he never leaves home without his turban and rose-colored spectacles. Yet, the tedious and unusual ensemble only made Kaz's life a little bit more bearable. Physically, he melded into the crowd, but people always felt uneasy around him without ever truly understanding why.

And so it was that young Kaz Garoth grew up pretty much without friends. Although this did not mean though that he lacked social skills. He was oddly persuasive and even talked his way out of getting arrested, once for stealing back a trinket his mother once wore and another for sneaking around an exclusive and well-guarded prostitute den ran by no less than the Caliph of Calimport himself. Over the years, Kaz proved that he can be as devious and scheming as any Baatezu, but his strong personal conviction to doing what's right and keeping with the law of common good pushed him to exercise his skill only when truly needed.

And mad skills he had. Whatever Kaz Garoth lacked in personal magnetism and physical appearance, he made up for pure intelligence, dexterity and wit. Kaz was never the strongest guy around, but he sure was the quickest. Coupled with an uncanny situational awareness, Kaz has proven himself to be a most difficult target - using everything around him to his advantage.

This skill has not gone unnoticed by the most prestigious thieves' guild of the south, and soon, word was out about a young Calishite kitchen boy who can find his way through a open hall guarded by twenty hunters and their bloodhounds.

Whether or not Kaz was placed under the employ of the guild remains irrelevant for his most famous deed was the assassination of a rather powerful but crazy old mage that made her home near the High Road connecting Calimport to the northern city-states of the Sword Coast.

The old mage was a female tiefling like Kaz, but with a rather different background. She grew up rejected and discriminated and found her solace in reading endless volumes of books. At an early age, she discovered her innate arcane prowess and decided that with this, she can have her revenge on the people that persecuted her. She forced her way back to the small coastal town where she grew up, obliterating the sizeable defense. Without real opposition, she easily took over the town's leadership and enslaved the entire population. She then declared herself the "witch queen," and ruled over the town with what she called a "benevolent dictatorship."

Healthcare for all!

Normally, the Calishites would not mind such a town in their neighborhood, but ever since the witch queen's power grew, it has been exacting a heavy toll on the traders that passed through its road. And when a caravan carrying 6 months' worth of grain bound for Calimport suddenly disappeared, the hungry and desperate people of Calimport demanded that the Caliph do something about the situation.

Over the next few days, messengers were sent requesting for safe passage for the traders in return for whatever the queen wanted. But when messengers returned without their bodies attached to their heads, it became clear that the once benevolent dictator became mad with power and greed.

Kaz was then called to a private meeting with the Caliph and was given only one instruction: "Return with the mage's head or do not return at all." Although it was well known that the Caliph had little patience for failure, Kaz was still taken aback at the sterness of the request. Only later was it made clear to him that the Caliph knew all along that he was a tiefling and that he ignored revealing the disguise knowing that he can make use of this knowledge later on.

And the Caliph was right. Normally, Kaz would never accept such a demand, and it was not as if Calimport had a shortage of fine assassins.

A certain Artemis Entreri comes to mind.

Kaz thought that perhaps it was because of all the skilled assassins of Calimport, a young, unproven tiefling rogue would be the most expendable. The Caliph was taking a gamble at killing the crazed demon mage, and he was smartly starting his bet at the minimum.

Kaz knew one thing was certain: he no longer had a home in Calimport. And until he delivered on his task, not him nor his mother would be ever be safe from the vengeful and intolerant Caliph. So with a broken heart and battered soul, he said goodbye to his beloved mother, and after years of hiding, he finally went to the streets without his glasses and salve to the shocked gasps and awed stares of the Calishites.

He was now on his way north.

What happened between then and the time a boxed parcel arrived at the Caliph's door remained a mystery to this day.

Word on the street was that the boxed parcel contained a certain mage's head and a note written in Infernal, which translated to Common reads, "The head of the matron to trade with a daughter." The message was taken by the Calishite scribes to be coming from Kaz himself but the handwriting was surprising since nobody knew that the tiefling could write, more so in Infernal. They further deduced that Kaz wanted to secure the safety of his mother through the mage's successful assassination.

The Caliph, pleased that his gamble paid off went out to search for his now prized killer. But none of the scouts he sent ever came back, except for one which was terrified beyond the capacity to speak. The Caliph saw that beneath the scout's bloody tattered robe were wounds that resembled words written in Infernal: "Touch us not."

Infernal: also known as "l33t5p3@k"

Enraged but wise not pursue a blood feud with the rogue, the Caliph cut his losses and went back to running his city which now enjoyed an evidently larger trade.

To this day nobody in Calimport knows where Kaz Garoth journeyed. Rumor has it that his last note to his mother, written in Infernal, bore the words: "North" and "Luskan".

Darksbane, The Beginning

Growing up in the sprawling Eastern city of Murghom was easy as pie, especially for the young boy whose history is as colorful as his tattooed celestial birthmarks.

Josef Blake was born to Allesa Blake around 1402 DR (Dale Reckoning). His father, most of his relatives claim, was a Solar, the highest and most powerful class of celestial who was once tasked to lead an army of half-angels known as Aasimars and good-aligned humans, mostly Paladins of every rank and ilk, against the two demon factions that overflowed unto the material plane during the peak of their blood war. It was rumored that his father was so powerful that he single-handedly defeated a third-tier Balor Demonlord that was leading one side of the enemy (read, Balor: fire-breather, tall as a four-storey inn, strong as ten dire bears on 'bull's strength' potion, can gore you with horns the size of a full-grown man, eats spellcasting imps for breakfast, and battles other demonlords on a weekly basis for tier-ranking).

Seriously. Don't even think about it.

With nothing but a +5 enchanted sword and seven epic-level clerics' worth of divine magic, Josef's father was rumored to defeat the Balor in an all-out one-on-one battle while the rest of the army watched in awe, soiling their trousers in the process. It was also rumored that right before he landed the killing blow, he cut off the Balor's ginormous black horns and said, "I'll make this my back-scratcher," then pissed on the demon's burning ashes to put out the flame. And before he can turn his attention to the other demonlord leading the opposing army, it disappeared, apparently collapsing back to the nine hells out of complete terror. It was the first documented case of a non-human stroke.

Immediately after slaying the demonlord and scaring the life out of the other one in completely un-angelic fashion, he uttered one intense holy word that instantly killed half of the demons in the battlefield and left the rest stunned and disconcerted. A hundred paladins that fought alongside the celestials owed their lives to him that day, for it was through his awesome feats that the army was finally able to cut through the swarming demons and banish the remainder back to the depths of the hellish planes.

In the middle of all that divine-infernal war, Josef's father met a strong-willed but insecure woman named Allesa whom he would soon love. As it turned out, celestials were not only skilled at conquering demons, they were also skilled at conquering hearts (yuck), so even if Allesa had never ever in her life loved a man, she was soon head-over-heels over the angel, who in her words was literally "heaven-sent," - words that she denies saying now that she's less love-drunk.

It does not take a wizard to know that relationships between a human and non-human like this one couldn't last. Sure, the few days they spent together was a whirlwind of romance and love-making, but eventually, the angel had to return. This is something Allesa knew and accepted beforehand so there were little qualms about raising young Josef alone, except for the occasional quips about Solars being the "biggest assholes of the heavens."

Celestials in order of assholery (front to back): an astral deva, a planetar, and a solar)

Having such a legendary father made Josef grow up rather famous and privileged. He went to the best paladin school in Murghom where he got access to the top masters of the class. Also, being born of an angel, he was invited to exclusive Aasimar banquets where they just talked about how cool it was to be half-celestial and basically debated social issues just to highlight how they were above all the other races, all the while sipping their century-old elven wine and munching on rare griffin-milk sour cheese. Yes, even if it was against his core principles, J. Blake accepted being part of the doucheiest bastard race in Faerun.

It seemed that everything came easy for Josef, but somehow he can never get out of his father's shadow. Everyone around him loved to talk about the "angel-with-no-name." They simply called his father the "Demonsbane of Murghom," and every iteration of his story became exponentially exagerrated. One such version mentioned how his father marched alone on the battlefield, and seeing the tens of thousands of hellspawn, just laughed and swung his sword in the air, castrating every tanar'ri and baatezu in the process. Eventually he got tired of hearing people talk about how we was never going to be like his father, and that he would never amount to anything more than a spoiled little Aasimar paladin.

At age 19, J. Blake took to the streets in a bid to get away from Murghom, he hitched with a trading caravan and eventually found his way west across the continent to a then little-known city called Neverwinter where he applied to become part of the town guard. Even though he seemingly botched the interview with the town's high council by showing up wearing a tattered tunic and patched-up trousers, he was hired for his strategic and tactical brilliance. Soon, he was making a name for himself, and was promoted to the rank of captain and becoming part of the elite castle guards by age 29.

He was not content to sit still inside the castle so he requested to become part of the Neverwinter army where, like his father, he would become a general. He has then successfully led the army to reclaim and defend most of the city's borderlands against goblinoids and orcs who were generally considered sub-human by the Neverwintan cilized folks more for their filthiness than their penchant for eating babies.

Gimme your clean babies!

By age 88, he has seen countless battles and has personally bashed the heads of opposing generals, both humanoid and non-humanoid, with nothing but his gauntlet. The Neverwintans have deemed him way too brutal and ruthless for a paladin, naming him "Darksbane" due to the pure terror that grips the hearts of his enemies. Some even argue that General J. "Darksbane" Blake was a warlord at heart, and that being a lawful good paladin was only a profession to him. Josef hears all these rumors but neither confirms nor denies them, perpetuating his mystique. Over the years, he has come to embrace the name and the reputation that came with it.

Yet, despite seeing too many changes in the seasons, Josef Darsbane is still by all appearances quite young, something that we can possibly attribute to his celestial bloodline. It may be something else too in his blood that keeps him from becoming content, for despite being a poster-child for easy success, he up and left his Neverwinter post rather abruptly, leaving his Eladrin assistant paladin and her cleric beau to manage the town's defense and policies, which in retrospect didn't seem like a good idea.

Whatever. Aribeth de Tylmarande is still hot.

With little word, he headed towards the rival city-state of Luskan to pursue an obscure and laughable call for heroes that looked more like a pyramid scam than a genuine cry for help.

This led people to speculate on what he was looking for. Maybe he was expecting to see a long-lost love he once met in his adventures. Perhaps he was looking to drink, gamble and fornicate behind the walls of the sin-city, away from the scrutiny of Neverwinter king Alagrond. Others go down deeper, saying that all his life he only wished to make his father proud and that perhaps Luskan's call holds the key since he wasn't getting the pat on the back with what he's done in Neverwinter. As the speculation mount and the people become increasingly redonkulous, one thing was certain: whatever it was that he was pursuing, it was now something between him and his paladin god.

As cliched as it may sound, only time and fate will tell how far Josef Darksbane's journeys will take him.