Arylon Family/Avalair

NON-PLAYED CHARACTER
Please note - this character was never played in the Battlemaster Universe. He has been created to add RP depth to the other characters.

Historical documents show that Avalair was born of two common parents, and had no birthright. Family legend states that Avalair was born in the dead of winter, during a particularly damaging blizzard in the region of Calis, in the Cagilan Empire. The birth was a difficult one for his mother, with the elements penetrating the small living quarters she was in lowering the temperature inside to a dangerous level. It was discovered that Avalair was breeched and his chances of survival were deemed by the midwife to be less than five percent. The delivery was terribly painful, and after nearly forty hours of fighting and clawing, he emerged from the womb and let out a mighty wail, surprising all present with its strength. The midwife, according to family retellings, looked at the child and declared "this child has eyes of stone. He shall lead men." Cryptic as they may have been, the words proved to be prophetic.

As a boy, Avalair began to hear stories of an ancient and powerful secret society, devoted to the preservation and dissemination of knowledge. Whispers among the wind danced in his mind, stories of great swordsmen, charismatic diplomats, brilliant academics, and wealthy traders all coming together and sharing their knowledge, without regard to class or station in life. For a boy who wished to rise above his common parentage, this proved to be a seductive legend. As he grew older he searched endlessly for any kind of hint or clue as to the group's existence. Eventually, he heard a name that some claimed to be that of the organization. It was supposedly called the Order of the Emerald.

To his great dismay, he also learned that they gathered in a secret place, away from the prying eyes of the world, impossible to find unless brought there by another. Tales of secret gatherings held at night in a desolate field, far from cities and civilization haunted and tempted him. As he grew older, he became tormented by the thought of escaping his mundane life, and finding membership in the Order. He believed he was destined to do great things, but in a feudal world, growing up borne of common parents learning the trade of blacksmith would never give him any chance to prove himself. He resolved to find some way of becoming initiated into the Order, but could not find any real-world connection to it.

As time wore on, he began to grow increasingly doubtful that such an organization existed, and began resigning himself to a future of being abused by his lord. Fate, he believed, had abandoned him.

All of that changed one night when he heard a desperate rapp on his door.

It was raining heavily outside, and Avalair was just preparing to retire when he heard a loud bang at his front door. It was unusual for anyone to visit him at that hour, especially on a night with terrible weather. He grabbed a dagger and went to the front door. As he opened it, a dark figure fell forward onto the floor. He wore a black uniform and grasped a blood-covered sword. On the hand that grasped the weapon, Avalair saw a silver ring, with an emerald stone. He had heard stories of Order members being given an emerald ring upon acceptance into the order. Feeling a sense of opportunity, Avalair quickly dragged the stranger inside the house and closed the door behind him. He took the man into the back of the house and tended to his wounds. The man was alive but was not conscious.

Moments later, a loud crash could be heard from the living room. It was somebody trying to knock down the door to get in. Avalair knew that whoever had hurt this man had tracked him and come to finish the job. Instinctively he grabbed one of the many blades in his house that had been made by his own hand due to his work as a blacksmith. He was certainly no master swordsman, but knew how to handle himself. Fear gripped him though, for he did not know what was coming through the door.

Several more bangs came as he prepared himself, bringing his sword above his head in a pose ready to strike. A loud crack slammed his eardrums, and the door came crashing down. What came behind it was a monstrous man with a large curved blade in his hand. Immediately he spotted Avalair with a weapon, and went after him.

The battle lasted for several minutes, with the young blacksmith avoiding death a number of times as his skill level was obviously much lower than the attacker. He was being pushed back, and decided his only chance at survival was an aggressive and wild melee to hopefully take the attacker by surprise. As his sword was knocked back, Avalair flew into a rage, hacking wildly with no discernable objective, banging the attacker's sword, and pushing him back as well. The attack was of little consequence to the attacker however, and he quickly regained the upper hand and knocked the sword from Avalair's hand.

As the attacker raised his sword to deliver the killing blow, a small dagger from across the room spun toward him, and stuck him in the neck, just under the jaw. Shocked and injured badly, the attacker dropped his weapon and grabbed the dagger. Avalair took his chance, picked up his sword and ran it through the man's chest. He fell to the ground, slain. From across the room, the stranger that had stumbled in his house moaned, and fell to the ground losing consciousness once more. He had saved Avalair's life.

That encounter would prove to be the turning point in Avalair's life. The stranger was a man named Soran, and he was a member of the Order of the Emerald. To thank him for defending him against his attacker, Soran agreed to sponsor Avalair's membership in the order later that year.

As the organization is secret and does not release information that would even confirm its existence, the entire account of what he learned while he was there is to this day unknown. What is known is that he emerged from two years of time training with the Order, and when he came out, he wore the same black uniform that Soran had, complete with the emerald ring. He also carried with him a new sword, the design and making of which was supposedly the final step before being fully accepted as a member.

Immediately upon returning to Calis, it was announced that he would wed the noble daughter of the Count of Calis, Avery Stanford. It has been speculated that Avery's father, Jevon Stanford, Count of Calis was a member of the Order of the Emerald, and was impressed with young Avalair, so much so that he promised his daughter to him. Upon Marrying Avery, Avalair become a noble of the fledgling Cagilan Empire. Upon the death of Jevon, Avalair assumed control of Calis and took a second name, Arylon, a modified version of the hereditary title Aryl, which in an ancient Atamaran language means "Lord". It was a title given to the tribal warlords that used to roam Calis in the chaos that existed before the nations of Atamara formed.

Today the sword he created, bearing the heraldry of the new noble house that Avalair founded, is known as the Sword of Arylon, and was last known to be in the possession of Gheric Arylon, Avalair's grandson.