Avoti the Blessed One

Special Equipment:



Appearance:

Avoti is tall and wide-shouldered, but emaciated, his former muscle gone to self-denial and self-starvation. His face, given more flesh, would be handsome, but as it is, it skull-like in appearance, and a gruesome scar runs from his nose to his jaw along his cheek. His eyes are blue, and glow with that feverish intensity that only a true zealot of his God can show; yet, they lie in deeply socketed slots, and are hooded by heavy lids. His head is shaven, and his jaw shorn, like any common priest of the God of Two Faces.
He usually is clad in a simple robe such as the least acolytes of the God wear- one half is white, the other black, belted with rope. He goes barefoot.
He gives off an air of great and terrible faith, an impression that he would do anything for his God and his Faith. His fervent piety manifests also in a rather jittery disposition- he is often stricken with tremors, and he has difficulty steadying his hand for the excitement that he feels when he reads of the Book of Two Faces. Despite his wasted appearance, he also projects a commanding sort of charisma.
He has an odd habit of forming very tight fists when he chews his food.
Avoti has not slept in over a year.

Background:

THE TALE OF THE PROPHET
Many years ago, when the people of the Kingdoms of Luwhia and Aldicsion warred against each other, there was much blood shed. The death was terrible- the battlefields were piled many spans high in the dead, and many fields were forever despoiled by the copious outpourings of the slain.
But to Luwhia, where is worshipped the Twin-Faced God, came a man who, it was said, was gifted over any other by the God. He was a healer, a priest, who worked miracles in the name of the One of Two Masks. He was a hero amongst the people, who healed the tensions of the war, and of the bodies of the soldiers. His intervention, indeed, brought eventually peace between his land of Luwhia and their enemies in Aldicsion. His name was Avoti, and after the war, he was given the title Blessed One, for the Magi of the God saw that Avoti was indeed blessed by their mighty deity.
For many years, Avoti lived amongst the people of Luwhia in simple priesthood, for though he was the Blessed One of the God, he behaved like a lowly acolyte, and spent none of his great fortune, which the Magi had bequeathed to him, except in that he married a beautiful woman, Arascui, and gave unto her a villa in the countryside to dwell in while he helped the people.
Then, one year, Avoti went upon the steps of the Great Temple of the Two-Faced God, and there began to shout:
'Listen, people! Your ears are filled with cotton! See what the Temple is doing to you!'
And he began to refute many secrets of the God, and to speak heresies before the Magi. He called unto him many men, and these became his own, and though they still worshipped the God, they were different, and their teachings were different.
There were in those times many conflicts, and the Magi called Avoti the Blessed One before them. There was a falling, and they had words, and Avoti burst from the Temple. There was a slaughter of priests upon the steps of the Temple by Avoti's warrior-zealots, and he fled the city to the mountains, and took with him his wife, Arascui.
There the Zealots and Avoti, now Heretics and slayers, made a great fortress, and called out to their followers amongst the people of Luwhi. Avoti and Arascui proclaimed that now the Magi showed their true colors- that they had attempted to slay the Blessed One, and that they were not at all true worshippers of the God. Avoti said that he was the only true Prophet of the Lord of Two Faces.
Among the people there was much division.
Now, the nation of Luwhi is not one in rule, it is said, for among the people there is a great conflict; the followers of the Magi battle against the followers of the Prophet Avoti, and nothing is as it once was. Indeed, halves are made by the division, and all is in chaos.
Avoti still rules from his mountain fortress, with his Zealots. He is a true fanatic- there can be no middle ground in his struggle. But, under his nose, his Zealots are tired. Their faith wanes while the conflict only escalates. And in secret they are drawn in by his wife, Arascui, who's infidelity he has not even the faintest echo of.
Also, Avoti is not any longer the man he once was. Driven by his crazed faith, captured Magi loyalists are fed to pits of fire or strung upon pikes. Captured Magi he executes himself, after forcing from them admissions of his truth by pain. His call for followers, once one limited to the virtuous, now allows the rankest of the people- the mercenaries and freeriders of the land, even, flock to his banner.

THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER
During his time among the people, Avoti stumbled upon a thing that no other has seen.
He had been among the deepest archives of the Temple, when he found a hidden passage amongst the shelves. This passage, cloaked in age and rot, led him deep into the earth. He discovered a forgotten altar to the Two-Faced One.
Upon this altar, Avoti found something, and this something entered his soul and his mind. This something, this being, is his constant companion, whispering unnoticed in the deep reaches of his brain, teaching him the new ways of his dissident religion.
This something, which not even Avoti is aware of, is, in truth, the Dark Face of his God, a creature of darkness, pain, and hunger, of nightmares and death. Though Avoti's beliefs are true, they are subtly influenced through the Dark Face's unnoticed manipulation.

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