[b]Name[/b]: Hugh McTrenkel

[b]Description[/b]: Short, wide-built middle-aged male. Wears a medium length chocolate colored beard. His hair and the beard are scraggly and thin, taking on an overall wiry unkempt appearance. Often dresses in modest blacks or darker grays and white.

[b]Background[/b]: Hugh McTrenkel is a son of poor circumstance. Born thirty-nine years ago to a minor noble family he entered the living world with a silver spoon in his mouth. Though by no means of significant nobility, his family none the less were modest landowners with several farms on their grandiose estate in southern Tirna. For less than two centuries his family here were considered as earls of the southern Borshire Hills. Here, the Trenkel clan had lead their serfs in the production of hops, barley, and grapes, producing some of the most coveted ales and wines in the two united kingdoms (Though not as prestigious as Loran in their rich diversity and acclaim in their own alcohol, they were the next best thing). In some respects his father and ancestors for the past century had enjoyed an on-and-off informal title of Minister of Wines, largely being tasked in advising the king on brewing affairs; though on daily and more prominent grounds they were little more than advisers to the Court on which wine or strong drink was proper for which occasion.

Hugh was born the first son of Earl Rotham and his wife Margret. He had seven younger siblings born spattered over his youth. But being the eldest of them all the young Hugh enjoyed far better privileges and education than his siblings. He was taught to speak four varying languages from traditional Tirnish to Sorsettian, as well as Libirian and Antoinnese. His family were not well known as being warrior kings, so were as such not nearly as ancient as many other local clans. They were however diplomatic and political. And it was as such that Hugh would be practiced in his family's art, and made a worldly person in as many ways as they could.

The fortune however was short-lived. By the age of 16 Hugh was noted for having odd tastes. Attempts to encourage the young noble to marry and continue the family line were proving agonizingly difficult for his father. Young Hugh it seems would not take interest in women. Frustrated in his father's attempts he delved himself deep into books. Likewise, frustrated in Hugh his father made equally desperate and elaborate bids to discover what was wrong with his son, and how to get him to marry.

These attempts however came to a sudden, dramatic end when Hugh was discovered in bed with one of the estate's servant boys. The sordid affair sent his father into a rage. Rotham had his son arrested for sodomy, condemning him to the family dungeon.

Not wanting to have a “sissy man” lead the next generation of the dynasty, and for the shame he committed Rotham denounced him. Ultimately – by his power – turning him into a peasant over night. He was issued a ultimatum: he was to go to war as part of his father's contribution to the conflict in Bruge, or he would further denounce his ties to his family and join the congregation.

Not being a fighting man, Hugh opted without hesitation to join the clergy. On the following fortnight he was released from his father's prisons, stripped of his possessions, and sent to the priesthood.

Hugh's first year in the priesthood came mixed. Over his youth he was befriended by a local friar who contributed to his young education all the teachings and the dialects associated with Ethan, and he believed himself a stout believer in Ethahnism. As such, the education and tests were easy, but did not make it easy.

Well known in the local area for the sinful malice of his known homosexuality much of his oath taking was suffered under grueling ritual in an attempt to drive out sodomy and purify him. Often times he would become the naked center of trials by whips and fire to burn away his sexuality. At one point it was demanded he be castrated to finalize it. This proposal was horrifying, and he had no intention of staying from then on. The night before it could be done, he ran away.

Hugh spend the next few month in transit among the Tirnish counties. He had no money and no real power in his name. He was incapable of building anything, and returning home would most certainly see him forced into the army. He assumed the life of a beggar over the course of the winter, suffering through cold rains and snow until meeting with a foreign missionary.

Traveling under the name of Basuin of Arquin the missionary took pity on the transient Hugh. Identifying himself as a member of a group of monks of the “Pure Flame” approach of Ethahnism he promised to care for Hugh, in exchange he hears out his path. With nothing to lose, and all the reason to not accept, he did.

Over the course of the next several years Hugh was fed and watered by the seemingly simple and homely monk, who rejecting all worldly possession and comfort often had more gold than he needed, and passed it off in charity; of which Hugh was.

The Pure Flame, as Basuin taught Hugh was the belief that a man or woman must reject first the wealth of the physical world and place before it the wealth of the spiritual, committing to pacifism and charity to support his contemporaries. A man should proclaim themselves to a sectarian life and to share among the impoverished the wealth of the physical world so they might live comfortable to pursue a life of meditation and obedience to Ethahn. To the Pure Flame the secular was placed secondary or even tertiary to spiritual advancement. It was not to say that the secular was condemned by the followers, just that it should not be important to man's pure survival and mission to please Ethahn's spirit and to even expand the faith.

The Pure Flame as well condemned all forms of idols and depiction of Ethahn and his proponents. To do so was a distraction of man's spiritual purpose and a corruption of Ethahn's shapeless nature. To depict him in physical form was to restore the body he himself destroyed to build all the known world; and so man in the end should do the same to build more onto creation as he did.

Castration for sodomy to the sect was frowned upon as being barbaric, as it was believed to be in its homeland. Instead Basuin merely asked for Hugh's chastity, which he considered a merciful replacement. Basuin taught him that in the end, the merits of man would be judged in the afterlife, and so long as they committed whole heartily to his cause and their good deeds were measured well against his bad he was promised a kind afterlife; for Ethan's presence is in and knows all, so will understand. This running contrary to the customary belief man must be exposed to Hell in the living life to purge them of their sins before passing on, so as to shorten or free them from Hell in the afterlife.

Hugh was inspired by Basuin and took up his mantle, becoming a priest in rags. The two parted officially at the port of Doulein where the monk returned to his home, leaving Hugh to continue his mission in Tirna.

In the reign of Aenda, such ideologies as the Pure Flame were considered heretical by the staunch conservative church that Hugh had once almost been a part of. Witch hunts were organized to find the heretics and pagans that persisted the kingdoms over. The Inquistorial gangs of Aenda were poised to take out people like Hugh, and in short order he was soon discovered and captured by Aenda's inquisitors and brought to trial for heresy.

Hugh was arrested and condemned of his heretical notions just months before the mission to the New World was under taken. He was originally to serve twenty-five years in the care of a mountain monastery to be reformed, what little remained of his name saving him from the executioner's pyre. However, when the papers were put out and the ship selected, his sentenced was changed by the fates to take to the sea and travel west.

Hugh had not been on a ship for longer than a week, and the months-long voyage across the ocean was grueling and torturous for Hugh. Among the two hundred others he clung to life and his stomach on Aenda's prison ship en'route for Sorset's colonial claim to the west. Hugh did his best to bide his time by comforting himself – and those who would listen – with the mercy of Ethahn. Though his sickly attempts at preaching did not often set well with the firebrand members of the crew and would-be colonists.

His first year in Upponhill was with most a rough one. Though his life of rural poverty proceeding his arrest had certainly familiarized him with the punishment of winter he did often retreat to seek comfort in the “warming fire of Ethahn”. As winter came to an end he came out convinced more of his own faith, and filled with a hotter fire to serve it more energetically. After all, in times of freezing his presence was most thawing. And if the rest understood as such then perhaps they'd have the modesty and will to last more winters.

During the autumn preparations Hugh was introduced to the natives of this strange new land, along with the rest of the colonists. Though he did not see them as a potentially savage curiosity as many of his kin did. He instead looked down upon them as children needing to be saved, as his new faith suggested. These people were kind and gentle in his eyes, filled with the capacity of mercy that would be beneficial to all parties, if only they could be shown the light.