"You’ve evaded death long enough. Now it has found you." -Alusys
Identity[]
Race: Shadar-Kai
Class: Warpriest of Death
Affiliation: Emissaries of Gloomwrought
History[]
Long eons in the Shadowfell have shaped the shadarkai into a fiery and, some say, cruel people. Fighting the apathy pervasive in their home plane, shadar-kai live passionately and fearlessly, if grimly. They see themselves as instruments of death and dissolution, the bringers of the righteous end to complacency, stagnation, and life itself. Theirs is a harsh society of self-interest. Among shadar-kai, the strong of body and mind excel and create legends. The weak molder to dust, passing into eternity unremembered. Plagued with the pervasive despair characterizing the Shadowfell, Alusys filled the hole in her heart with service to the Raven Queen.
The living are allocated only a finite amount of time in the world, and creatures such as vampires, ghouls, and other undead violate this stricture and must be destroyed. The Raven Queen was the guardians of the balance between the living and the dead, marking the end of each life and seeing the fate that awaits all living creatures. The death domain granted Alusys her power. Clerics of the death domain are shunned as evil by mortals who fear death. However, the power of death is not evil in and of itself. By choosing to wield this power, Alusys worked to maintain the balance that death represents. She hunted down undead creatures, opposed the evil of Orcus, and served as an instrument of punishment for those that tried to avoid death's hold over all living things. With the power of death at her disposal, Alusys' prayers marked her enemies for certain doom.
Regardless of her religious bent, the traditions of Alusys' people ran strong in her veins. Those veins had spilled her own dark blood for fated deeds; and those deeds had, in turn, moved her along the road to fulfilling the dream almost every shadar-kai holds in mind and heart. The natural course of Alusys' life seemed to be to fulfill her people’s ancient pact against all those who stand in opposition to departing creation. Whether through her intentional strengthening of her shadar-kai nature or by happy chance, Alusys' body had grown strong in death. Alusys was drawn to those who defied death and fate, especially creatures that had immortality - natural or otherwise. To such ones Alusys delivered the sweet freedom of death, sending them into the arms they sought to avoid. Their resistance was for naught. Alusys was a representative of the inevitable. In her terrifying strength she abides - perhaps one day in immortality justly granted, but certainly in legend.
Alusys' journeys had seen her conquer uncountable dangers as a paragon of the shadar-kai people. She had traveled the planes as a committed representative of the pact that shapes shadar-kai traditions. In her way, Alusys had shown death the respect it deserves and her deific matron true devotion, never shrinking from her duty. Through obedience to shadar-kai convention, Alusys had brought down foes few could imagine, much less face. Still she stood. Beings across the cosmos knew and feared Alusys as an envoy of fickle fortune. Even those who didn’t know her sensed that Alusys was beloved by death herself, finally on the brink of the greatest reward all shadar-kai could hope for.