Ascension of Vothr

Vothr, or Wothar, is the bastard son of Finri and a human woman who lived long before the Dark began. Her name has been lost to time, but she is survived by a small cult known as the Midwives of the Enflamed who provide protection and aid to single mothers and widows. According to legend, upon Vothr’s birth, Finri was so enraged, as he had not been told of the pregnancy, that when he felt the presence of his son on Mer, he sent down a great conflagration that engulfed the entire town that Vothr was in at the time. Vothr, being the son of the god of fire, was spared from this slaughter and was quickly after taken in by Spyra. Being the goddess of spirituality, she was made aware of Vothr’s situation when the souls of the victims in his village came pouring into her realm. Spyra decided to foster the motherless child, sending patrons of her temple to retrieve the baby and care for him until his 13th year. At the age of 13, Spyra made herself visible to Vothr in a form which only he as part-godly would have been able to withstand and shared with him the story of his origins. Enraged at his father for the slaughter of hundreds of innocent people over his birth, Vothr set out in his mortal life to protect those he deemed as unable to fight for themselves. It was this mission that would lead to the end of his life on Mer. In the opening years of what would become known as the Dark, Vothr made his way into battle against a force of mages who sought to enslave a small village under their spell.
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Children of the various Merric gods have been born and died but few have risen to godhood in their own right, Vothr being one of the best examples. After a battle against the cohort of fifty mages, he was slain by a great confluence of ancient magic, and the mages banished his soul to the Plains of Damnation. His soul, now in the hands of the goddess who saved him as a child, was guided through the Plains. He was led to the interloper demon Fhaerir who had established dominion over the Plains. The mortals of Mer had felt the events of the Great Usurpation, all connection to the souls of their ancestors was cut off for over a decade. Fhaerir had cut off Eternity from the mortal plane by enslaving the population of the Plains of Damnation, using their energy to erect a great barrier between the two worlds. Spyra helped Vothr as well as she could on his journey to meet Fhaerir, who had sent his minions to intercept him. Armed with Spyra’s blade, Soul Cleaver, Vothr carved his way effortlessly through the hordes of men who stood in his way. The path of bodies left in his wake over time fell away into bones and now serves as a pilgrimage path for those whose souls are sent to the Plains. When Vothr finally met Fhaerir, the two locked into fierce combat. The reverberations of their actions in the Plains were so great that the dead began to rise on Mer as Fhaerir’s control over their souls was loosened. When Vothr landed his final blow into Fhaerir’s skull, shattering Soul Cleaver in the process, all the souls under his control were released. They flooded back into Mer, reanimating their corpses for a very brief time until Spyra was able to return, regaining control over her ethereal plane and putting the mortal dead back to rest. The tip of Soul Cleaver was lost when the blade shattered in two, the base of the blade remaining in Vothr’s hand. Fhaerir’s black blood seeped into the steel, imbuing it with the power to destroy one’s soul eternally, banishing them from all ethereal planes and Eternity, leaving them to wander the Void forever.

In 625 of the First Era, the tip of SoulCleaver appeared on Mer in the hands of a mage who claimed to have traveled to the Plains of Damnation and returned with it. The blade certainly matched the description of Soul Cleaver as it was following the death of Fhaerir. Even though it was modified to fit the form of a dagger, the blade had the tell-tale marks of black lines in a sharp crystalline pattern, and it was unnaturally light for a dagger of its size. It wasn’t until it was used in an attempt to kill a rival of this mysterious mage that its veracity was proven when Spyra’s aspect came down and attacked him with a violent fury. The mage’s rival, a scholar named Aldouis, picked up the dagger and pledged to Spyra’s aspect that the dagger would never be used to kill, upon which time Spya grabbed it from his hands and landed the final blow on the mage. Aldouis pledged to erect a temple in Spyra’s honor for saving his life. There he would dedicate his life to serving the dead, constructing vast catacombs to house the unknown dead of the Aehlitian Empire. His cult of the newly renamed BloodBlade grew quickly and would eventually take on duties in all corners of the empire, overseeing the burying of all dead, and reshaping burial practices in the process. For his dedication Spyra granted upon Aldouis a form of eternal life on Mer. When he passed his spirit would remain tied to Mer, communicable with by his successor to the High Priest of the BloodBlade. When they died, their spirit would join Aldouis’ and so on with every successive High Priest. Eventually, a great tower was constructed where the High Priests would live, spending their entire life in communion with their predecessors. A group of priests known as the Grave Keepers served just underneath the High Priest and would be the first to be given wisdom received from the High Priests of old.

Ironically the cult of the BloodBlade is at odds with Vothr, who wishes to reunite the pieces of Soul Cleaver. It was only for the protection of Vothr’s adoptive mother, Spyra, that there was no conflict between the two. There was, however, a rival cult of Vothr, whose popularity gave way over time to the more mainstream worship of the god, who sought to destroy the cult of the BloodBlade and present Vothr with the dagger to reunite Soul Cleaver. The two groups eventually came to a head when the Vothr cultists stormed the Blood Blade tower to attempt to steal the dagger. In an unexpected move, Vothr came down from the Plains of Damnation to ward off the intruders. While he similarly desired to reunite his legendary sword, he saw the desecration of a temple to his mother as unforgivable. In only a few short moments he struck down every one of the men that had dedicated their lives to his worship, sending them all to the Void.