Searren Flametongue

Special Equipment:
Phoenix Talon
Inferno Mail

Appearance:

Like so many of his race, Searren is slightly slimmer and shorter than a human man, yet he is a man of visible physical prowess, in the elven fashion. His slender body is iron hard and moves with an inhuman grace, the body of a hardened, experienced warrior. Unlike many of his race, his long hair is a vivid, bright red that snaps in the wind, dancing much like the flame of a torch. His face is finely chisled, handsome, though narrow and sharp. His right eye is a brilliant emerald chip, alight with his zeal, yet his left eye is not, an empty void closed by three parallel, slashing, tearing scars.

Searren carries himself alertly, his single eye darting back and forth with a hunter's gaze. He is not an easy follower, and will often attempt to take command and control over a given situation, even if another is nominally in charge. However, his crackling voice, sure confidence, and experience make him a relatively easy man to follow.

Background:

Even as a child, Searren was odd for an elf. He found little joy in the song and play of his fellows, finding his rapture instead in the enticing colors and sounds of the cook fires. As he grew older, this same mark of elseness followed him, and to escape the other young men and women, he often found himself wandering the sidepaths and narrow trails of the great forests.

As in any other ancient forest, these paths and ways were choked with underbrush and deadwood, full of fuel for the wildfires that often danced through them. The fires licked at the bottoms of the great trees, though it hardly hurt them, leaving behind ashen fertilizer and a new space for things to grow and live. As he watched, and even raced these wildfires, the need for them was something the young elf learned to understand, and to appreciate the flame's part in the cycle.

Not far from the name day which marked the end of his adolescence and the beginning of his adulthood, the young elf emerged into a field at the edge of the forests, whereupon he encountered an entirely new concept. A number of humans had gathered around a stake, and piled wood at the bottom of it, while to the stake, they had tied one of their own. It was swiftly clear that they were burning the woman alive. At once both terrified and enraptured, Searren could do nothing but watch the flame consume her, terrible shrieks of pain falling on deaf ears, until they suddenly ended. As the reeking, greasy smoke began to drift away, he walked up to the man who appeared to be the leader, and asked simply, 'Why do you do this?' The answer in return was also simple. 'She gave others death without rebirth.' And such was his introduction to the followers of Zevarith, Lord of Fire. So profoundly did the execution and the answer ring within him that he stayed, in order to learn more of this way of thought.

In time, he was passed from priest to priest, and from priest to knight, every one turning his soul further and further from the forest and to the fire. From the priests he learned doctrine and responsibility, and the rewards that came from obeying, and from the knights he learned the dance of sword and flame. Almost a decade after he had come across the execution, he knew that it was his time.

He told his Father Superior this, and the ritual was performed. Naked, he was hoisted high upon a stake, suspended by his own arms, his feet tied with wire against the steel post. Once hoisted into place, two knights in golden mail anointed his body with oils, and then, they anointed his his soul with fire, touching a torch to the oil soaked woot at his feet. As the fire leapt up and consumed him, he did not scream, for he felt no pain, only a oneness with his God. As the blazing fire died away, the fuel consumed, Searren remained upon his stake, unburnt, yet reborn in the name of Zevarith.

As a knight his duties were myriad, and though wearying, he performed them with distinction. Recently though, a confrontation with an ice demon took his left eye, and he has yet to have it regenerated.

Roleplaying Notes:

A fanatic follower of a god of both destruction and rebirth, Searren seeks to cleanse the world of the things that choke its growth. Many an evil man has died beneath his sword and beneath his torch, but so too have the good, all for the 'sin' of choking out the progression of what he sees as the cycle of life. Further, even if he errs, he does not feel particularly guilty about it, for he knows that both the innocent and the guilty will be reborn anew through the power of the Phoenix. Traditional good and evil mean little to the children of the flame.

To perform his duties, Zevarith grants his Knight a number of abilities. First, Searren has a limited command of divine fire magics. Though the most powerful effects are beyond him, what he has is both effective and adaptable. Second, he has a number of supernatural abilities that aren't quite spells. As a paladin may Lay Hands to heal, Searren may make a touch attack in order to ignite his foe. Seperate from this, he may cause his own body to burst into flame for a short time, and though he is not hurt, any who strike him are burned by that flame. Finally, he may purify another by way of a ritual that causes the veins to run with liquid fire instead of blood, for a time. Though exquisitely painful, the ritual is rarely fatal, and there are very few poisons or diseases that are not burned away by it.

Should he advance far enough in the service of Zevarith, the Rebirth of the Phoenix may become possible. If he dies, and his body is placed in a great bonfire, and both he and his god are willing, he may emerge from the fire alive and well.