I was just a young man when I lost everything. My family, my home, my very sense of self was ripped away from me by a lich called the Cave Mother, who took everything I held dear in the name of revenge. But she didn’t stop there. She gave me her dark gift, a cursed magical power that allowed me to wield shadow magic and raise the dead to fight for me. In exchange, the life I had left was taken from me and I was turned into an unholy combination of undead and living. I was disgusted by this power, but I couldn’t help but use it to survive as I wandered aimlessly through the world, eventually finding myself washed upon the frozen shores of Icebeach.
In my desperation to have any form of companionship or connection to my past, I found myself desecrating my father’s skeleton regularly. I raised him as an undead warrior and he became my most loyal companion in my time alone, fighting alongside me against the harsh wilds of Icebeach. In this moment of weakness, I also bound the ghost of my mother to my service as a shade, so I would always have my lost family with me. But the guilt of having enslaved my parents weighed heavily on me. I had denied them a peaceful rest and the irony of me using necromancy while condemning the Cave Mother was not lost to me.
I often thought of myself as a monster that would be better off dead. I didn’t know why the Cave Mother made me or let me wander the world. Perhaps she had some nefarious plan that ended with me carrying out unspeakable acts of terror on the innocents I hoped to protect.
Despite my inner turmoil, I found myself on an adventure with newfound friends. We sought to stop the Endless Winter that threatened Icebeach. But while on our journey to find Morena’s weakness, something strange happened. After using a mysterious spell sealed into a ring by a wizard, I met a version of myself from an alternate timeline, one where I was never given these dark powers and still had my family, alive and well, by my side, adventuring together to stop the Endless Winter. It was like a knife to the heart. The pain was unbearable. The evil I had accepted was for naught.
After seeing that and talking with the ghost of my father for the first time, I knew that I needed to change. I couldn’t live with the darkness within me any longer. I resolved myself to give up the necromancy that lich had used and instead become a powerful magical knight, using my remaining magic for good rather than evil. I would avenge my lost loved ones and redeem myself, no matter how long it took.
As I traveled through the frozen tundra, battling the harshest monsters Icebeach had to offer, I felt a sense of clarity I hadn’t felt before. The world was cruel and unforgiving, but I would show it that even the darkest of souls could find some semblance of light.
