Name: Kerri the Twice-Betrayer, Knight-Captain of Crossroad Keep, Kalach-Cha, Spirit Eater
Age: At least adult, later events make exact age unclear.
Gender: Female
Canon, AU, or OC?: Canon (minor AU--part of the abilities comes from the tabletop rather than game rules)
Universe of Origin: Abeir-Toril/Forgotten Realms; Neverwinter Nights 2
Personality: Having once been an upstanding paladin, and a servant of the God of Death, Kerri is an individual not easily given to displays of emotion nor good cheer. Betrayal and constant injustice have let them a bitter and sardonic warrior with what little honour they have remaining given over to enjoying the few fair fights they can get. Despite everything that's happened during her life, she still upholds justice as the greatest ideal--just one that this world can never obtain. Point to one positive, and she'll find a flaw.
Abilities/Weapons:- Blackguard: Once a paladin in service to Kelemvor, later experiences wore down her idealism, her faith, and finally her morals. By now far from fit to wield her old abilities, yet clinging to them as a sense of self when everything else was degrading, she achieved the inverse of what some paladins do--their abilities stemming from some inner sense of good or righteousness; hers from spite alone. Kerri wields a small assortment of magical abilities--though usually only caring for healing spells for her own purposes--and displays a surprising resilience to magical effects and disease. She even retains the ability to heal wounds with a touch, though not disease.
Furthermore, she has the ability to envelope her weapon in malignant energies, directly opposed to any force of good in the world, and correspondingly biting far easier and more deeply than her blade--impressive as it is--would. This likely shares its common routes in the oppressive feeling of despair that surrounds her, and allows the once-paladin to bend the undead to her will. This presence, and her warped mockery of paladin abilities, explains the demonic horse and skeletal 'squire' that attend to her, both disturbingly powerful for what started as a common steed and man. - Spirit Eater: A misleading name for a curse that, itself, initially stems from having your soul replaced with what is essentially the eternal hunger of the Wall of the Faithless, in and of itself a punishment for a priest centuries in the past. Yet, through her adventures, she has mastered this curse, extended it, and regained her soul. What the 'curse' allows her to do is recover from fatigue or injury through consuming wandering spirits... or simply devouring the souls of those too close to death to resist. This even includes the decaying remnants of a god, bent to strengthen her will to control the hunger. It encourages her to leave foes slowly dying as insurance--what better than to harvest a field of the almost-dead to recover if resistance appears too strong?
Now mastered, it has oddly conferred the ability to speak telepathically to others. - Leadership: Once a paladin, and now a blackguard relying as much on charisma as ever, she is vastly capable of inspiring men to great deeds... and from her time as the commander of a castle, organising and guiding them as well. In all respects, a capable general, though her true skill lies in leading from the front rather than strategy or tactics.
- The Silver Sword of Gith: An artefact of the Githyanki people, and the template for their other silver swords, it has served as her primary armament ever since being repaired. A two-handed sword that appears to be forged of molten silver when wielded, it has all the cutting ability expected of such a blade, and shields Kerri against paralysis and mental domination. It can also be subtly altered to either negate magic, cut through the physical better, or better protect her; a sword of somewhat varied physical shape created by a psychic race is rather versatile.
It can also cut the silver cord connecting astral travellers with their physical bodies, but that is of rather limited versatility except in the Githyanki's home. - One-of-Many: The gestalt agglomeration of a thousand souls, each a sinner of one form or another and most the scum of humanity, it was a beast that Kerri originally hoped to redeem. Speaking through the strongest soul, the 'One' that can control the rest, One-of-Many is a horrific undead monster that should not exist. Communicating only with its Master, Kerri uses this monstrosity as an assassin and scout, its ability to fade into the background proving immensely useful. As the One can call upon the skills of the Many--by ceding his (the Child's) control temporarily, it is also a possible vehicle to capturing abilities... by allowing it to consume them. Due to Kerri's preferring to enjoy a fight, its abilities haven't actually expanded.
It is a thoroughly unpleasant thing.
Backstory: As a child, there was a climactic battle in her home village. Long story short, her mother died and she got a shard of the Silver Sword in her chest, which was totally unremarkable through childhood, but when she reached adulthood did get the Githyanki to kill most of her village whilst searching for it. Thus, her foster father sent her to Neverwinter to find out what the shards (some not being in her chest) were, and through long adventures this escalated to solving a crime problem, being framed for murder, made a squire and later knighted, watching a friend be killed by their grandfather and so on.
Having dealt with the Githyanki trying to regain the sword parts, learned of a greater threat to the land, gained a castle, and generally improved in her abilities and devotion to her faith, Kerri sort-of-reforged the sword and went to confront this greater threat. Victorious in battle, there was nevertheless a rather pressing problem: apparently killing an ancient empire's immortal magical guardian causes its remaining buildings to finally collapse. Thus, rocks fall, everyone dies.
Only, for no reason that she could understand at the time, she woke in a barrow far, far away; a half-healed cut where her shard had previously been, an unknown hunger festering inside, and inexplicably not buried in several tons of stone. In trying to find out why, she found herself associating with a Red Wizard, a hagspawn, a half-angelic crusader, and fighting a rainbow-coloured bear--whereupon, unable to control her hunger, she consumed the powerful spirit, learning of her curse and surprisingly not offending her assembled companions.
Thus, she set off to learn more about her strange curse, not quite comprehending that with enough spirits nearby the curse could, for a time long enough to break it, be suppressed. The constant acts this demanded, as well as the encouragements of One-of-Many after freeing the souls from their crematorium to learn more of the
previous God of Death's judgements, slowly wore away at her noble ideals, until after many challenges she came to confront her patron's predecessor.
Enraged at how her predicament was simply the callous result of a punishment for their priest and convenience stemming from her connection to the sword, she devoured the remants of the god, and went forth to finish the Betrayer's Crusade against the Wall of the Faithless, regaining the reforged blade once more.
Yet once she reached the Fugue Plain, the injustice of the Wall truly struck her--a structure destroying all that would not believe in a god until nothing remained. The Wall's very hunger gnawed constantly at Kerri's self, showing her exactly how cruel it could be. Thus, rather than peacefully negotiate passage to regain her soul, the fallen--not that she had yet realised, her actions having lost her that status rather than her mentality--paladin lead the third crusade against the Wall of the Faithless, fighting against the other servants of Kelemvor and finally reaching the right point of the wall.
It was here, when her god appeared, disapproving of her actions for turning against the law of the world rather than fighting for what she thought to be good, that finally broke whatever good spirit remained. Though he allowed her to regain her soul and fight to end the curse, once fighting inside her own soul she thought nothing of subjugating the remnants of the original Betrayer and the hunger itself, ending her
need to feed on others rather than dispersing the curse, treating it as payment for the sacrifices she'd made and obligations of others Kerri had fulfilled to get this far--a weapon to be used upon the very embodiments of evil, lest they reform in the lower planes.
What completely broke any idealism remaining was how quickly her companions turned upon her when they learned of her choice, giving no chance to speak against them and attacking as a group. Abandoned by all but her loyal pet, and cast out by her god, Kerri finally became a blackguard proper, and wandered the planes seeking 'justice' against those that had wronged her. When the heavens themselves finally began to move against such a curse, the warrior sought more extreme means to escape--and found them.
With her remaining interests being to indulge her previously-suppressed addiction to combat, and still bitter against all the faulty structures that preach of the good of law, of justice, she joined Shadow Eternity.
Faction: Shadow Eternity
Member
RPM,
vue2026,
Ashifa ASMR YT,
Xyzzt,
Expendable,
AwesomeZero5,
Zapdos,
Kronshi,
ERode,
Fish of Oblivion
