Neill Family/Cid
Cid; son of Kvasir
Contents
Age at Death: 87
Class: Priest, Ambassador
Weapon of Choice: A simple dagger for personal protection.
Titles Held Upon Death: Eccelsiarch of the Trinity of the Far East, Prime Minister of Soliferum, Ambassador of Soliferum
Titles Held: Baron of Irdalni, Haruspex Maximus of Alowca, Senator of the Soliferum Senate, Grand Justicar of Soliferum, Deputy Prime Minister to Prime Minister Conan (Soliferum), Count of Cutnipaniel, Founder and Eccelsiarch of the Trinity of the Far East, Prime Minister of Soliferum, Ambassador of Soliferum, Duke of Osaliel
Religion: The Trinity of Khagister, Alluran, and Denarial.
Unique Items Held: Helm of Osaliel
Realms Served: Alowca, Soliferum
Personal Heraldry
Cid flew a variety of banners throughout his life and career as a noble leader of troops. Upon first arriving in Alowca, he flew a white banner with his personal coat of arms that depicted a golden shield bearing four images: three interlocking circles indicating the Trinity, a hand to show his pleadge of faith, a horse for his readiness to serve, and a shell to show the great travels he experience to reach Alowca. Upon taking up lordship of Irdalni, the white banner was bordered tan, to show his ties to the desert region. After the Great Exodus and his pledge to serve Soliferum, the edges were changed from tan to crimson to show the perilous journey he had taken to reach his new home.
The banner was eventually redesigned to show a sun behind the rings of the Trinity and the white changed to orange to show his loyalty to Soliferum. During his first term as Prime Minister, a crown was added atop the shield and the orange field was redone in royal purple. As he descended further into religious fanaticism he retired all of his banners and took to flying heavily stylized banners embroidered with scripture and images from the holy books of the Trinity. These banners were flown among his warriors outside battle and typically depicted the wording or story behind the battle chants and prayers used during a campaign by Cid and his forces.
Childhood and Teenage Years
Cid, son of Kvasir, was always an outcast in the Clan after birth. He was slow to take learn the neccessary Viking skills of hunting and battle and was often ridiculed by the other children for being small and weak. While below average in physical activities, he showed considerable skill in reading and memorizing the Clan Odes. Beliving he would one day become a follower of the Vikings gods, he was tutored by the Clan's wisemen in the arts of History, Writing, Painting, and Language. After returning from several lengthy campaigns, his father discovered his son's intent to become a priest and demanded he abandon his lessons and train to be a true warrior. Under the tutelage of his grandfather, a Viking named Jarl, he slowly became a competant huntsman and warrior, though still far behind his peers.
Adult Life
Not long after coming of age, Cid grew tired of being treated as the runt of the family and made plans to run away from home. Waiting for the day when most of the men in the family were out on a hunt, he made for the city of Makar and joined the crew of a trading vessel. His father, furious at his son's defiance, declared him an exile and outcast, something Cid would only learn of later, and threatened death upon him if he ever returned.
For years he made his living working on trade ships and as a sell sword, learning the concepts of honor and nobility that were never taught by the Vikings of Makar. Embracing a new lifestyle more befitting of his personality, he eventually used the gold he had saved to purchase his own ship and became a travelling scholar of sorts.
His life on the sea ended the day he ran afoul a terrible storm and found himself shipwrecked on the shores of Alowca in the Colonies. Monks of the Trinity took him in and nursed him back to health, while teaching him their ways. Among these monks, Cid met and befriended the man who would eventually serve as his scribe and later a high ranking member of the Church of the Trinity, Tel of Alowca. After he regained his strength he pledged an oath to Alowca and served with distinction in Alowca. When barbarian hordes descended upon Alowca and threatened to destroy her, he received a vision from the Trinity that called him from the Colonies to a new home in the Far East.
After leading a group of nobles to the Far East in what he would later call The Great Exodus, they swore allegiance to the Republic of Soliferum. With a plan to establish a new theocracy in the Far East, Cid pulled together the few Alowcan nobles that remained true to the cause and established a niche within Soliferum. While they served the realm faithfully, their goal for a new home of the faith never strayed far from their mind. As history would record it, Cid decent into religious fanaticism and the loss of several original nobles meant the they would never achieve their goal.
A major turning in his life came after a battle with a group of monsters on the outskirts of the region of Todtpiz. Wounded by one of the beast's claws, Cid found himself under the sway of a mysterious poison and, upon vanquishing the beasts, retreated into the woods in order to begin a series of purification rituals. When he returned he was found completely cured, but something haunted him still. Mere days later he would receive word that the Alowca he had left behind had fallen to corruption after barely surviving the war and had abandoned her faith in order to favor a perverted version of the Trinity. With all the events leading him down one specific path, Cid prepared to preserve the Trinity in the Far East once and for all.
Using his influence as a landed noble, Cid constructed what was to become the very first temple of the Trinity of the Far East in Cutnipaniel. Embracing a new sect of the Trinity that focused on honoring all three gods, he began preaching the word and spreading the faith throughout Soliferum. Leaving the life of a warrior behind, Cid prepared to battle a different war against the enemies of his faith. In the end, it would be more brutal than any true war he would have ever fought. Almost losing his sight in one eye, a spiderweb of scars across his body, and broken bones that never healed quite straight; his endless crusade against evil would take a considerable physical toll on Cid.
After serving briefly as the Prime Minister of Soliferum and attempting to end the war between his realm and the Grand Lodge of Lunaria (a decision that left him extraordinarily unpopular for a long period of time), he stepped away from politics. In his journal, now published under the title "Memoirs of the Ecclesiarch", he wrote while reflecting on the experience, "...twas a vile and treacherous maze. Around every corner I found only uglier and uglier faces as the lies piled up before me. I was exhausted and knew then the strength that better men must have to do this work. By the Trinity, I do not know if I could handle it again."
For next several years, Cid waged his own personal holy war against the enemies of his faith and the Trinity soon flourished throughout Soliferum. Some critics of the faith spoke out against his frequent peasant uprisings that led to mass executions of so called heretics and unbelievers, but in the end the Trinity had established itself as the primary faith of Soliferum.
Despite vowing to never enter politics again, Cid was forced to reenter the political arena during the Last Age of Soliferum. As the realm spiraled out of control thanks to the betrayal of the previous Prime Minister, Conan, he stepped up to take the reins and served as the Minister of Justice until being elected Prime Minister of Soliferum once more. With the realm's fate certain, he negotiated a cease fire and ended the war through a cease fire treaty.
With the wounds of his life catching up to him, Cid found that he had nearly reached an end. As far as most nobles knew, Cid had no family and no heir. However, in his youth he had married a woman and fathered a child. Fearing for the child's safety due to the many personal enemies he had gained, he sent the boy away to live with a rich noble family and his line had been preserved through them. With his last night quickly approaching, Cid sought out his great, great grandson and revealed his true heritage. It would be the last act of his life.
The Death of Cid O'Neil
Ecclesiarch and Prime Minister of Soliferum Cid O'Neil is believed to have succumbed to old age and died on the same day Osaliel was captured by the enemy forces that had been legally occupying the city as per the terms of the treaty he had negotiated. For days, rumors of his death had circulated throughout the former lands of Soliferum, though his body had not been found.
Sometime after his death, his great, great grandson marched in Osaliel at the head of a procession that carried a body in a wagon covered by the flag bearing the symbol of the Trinity and bouquets of white flowers. As he passed through the streets of the city and approached the ruined temple in Osaliel, it became apparent that it was the body of the former Ecclesiarch. After a full service, he was interred in the temple's tomb.
After the Trinity fell from favor and all but vanished from the lands, the faith's former temples and shrines were either left to rot or converted to other uses. The true location of the final resting place of the Ecclesairch, as a result, is lost to time.
"I have placed my life in the open arms of Denarial, blinded myself so that I may see what Alluran will show me, and I have let my hands go slack so that Khagister may create with them." - Cid on his faith in the Trinity.
