Knight-Solarus Samael Pendry, "Dawntreader"

Human / Paladin

Submitted character story

Samael Pendry was born the 3rd son of a minor noble family on the borderlands of a kingdom who had long since left it to ruin. His father was a kind man, though thoroughly unsuited for the role he was born into, and so it was that Samael's mother did the vast majority of running the families meager holdings, from the day to day management to marshalling the small militia force when bandits, highwaymen or raiders became more than a nuisance.

It was through her that Samael learned the value of honor, duty, and diplomacy. Unfortunately for him, he was the last of three boys, so the rather lacking resources of his barely noble upbringing coupled with a lack of formal titles to inherit meant that Samael's prospects as a loyal scion of his family were limited.

When the Lux Solari, a monastic order of clerics, priests and templar followers of The Light happened upon the Pendry estate, they found an excellent candidate in the youngest son, and as they departed, so did Samael.

For years he served the order as an acolyte, page and squire. The Order finally deeming him worthy to undergo his trial and take his vows at the age of 17. At the end of it, Samael stood tall - his skin tattooed with liquid light, the lines and symbols of his ancient order etched into his flesh - demonstrative of his new found status as a Knight-Solarus and Champion of the Light.

Weeks after his elevation, he and a cohort of his new Brothers and Sisters visited the Capital of a Realm far way. The Lux Solari bound by its purpose of serving the realms of the world with sword and speech - coming to the coronation of the Kingdom's newest Princess Araelia. As custom dictated, the king would choose her champion and protector from among the Knights of the Light. Samael, as a junior representative of his order was never meant to be anything more than an armored form among armored forms, but at the coronation, something unexpected happened. The toddler princess, barely two summers old squirmed from her mother's arms and made her way to the Knight she fancied most - the young, inexperienced and fully unready Samael Pendry.

Despite the protestations of  his older, more ambitious veteran brothers, the girls choosing was acknowledged by the Queen, and that was that. Samael was confirmed by the arch-lector, and as tradition dictated, he received a new name along with his prestigious post, "Dawntreader".

Samael Dawntreader spent the next 15 years at the side of the Princess. He served as her advisor, her guardian and to his surprise, her friend. The Princess carried the weight of her parents ambition, the noble strength of her royal blood, and a keen intellect and ease of ability. She also was precocious, spoiled and too aware of how special she was to the kingdom and its inhabitants. Somehow though, Samael guided her when he could, kept her safe and nurtured her as he might a daughter - and she grew into a capable, patient and impressive young woman.

It was at her adult name day that the Princess - Samael's purpose for almost half his life and almost all of hers- a person he came to see as his own child in many ways was taken from the world by a band of assassins with more information that should have been possible. They crept into the fortress unseen, evaded all of the guards and managed to delay Samael just enough that he was unable to intervene in her death.

The loss of the Princess devastated the Paladin. It shook his faith not only in the Light, but in himself. He is adrift in a world without purpose, and as such has found himself as a wandering Knight-Errant - but in the small hours of  the night he finds himself resolved and his wrath ignited - wreathed in the light that shines through the lines on his dark skin. He will find those who took his purpose away, and in doing so find a new one - wrath, vengeance, and justice - in the all illuminating Light, where no shadow can survive.