Terin Aderath

   Terin is a possible character for the Federation Apocolypse setting – and his personal capsule history includes several important factors for that setting: He’s about thirty now (roughly equivalent to 20 for a pre-genetic engineering human), and thus was old enough to be growing up during the tail end of the Great Opening, when the dimensional gates into the Quantum Manifold were being established. He had enough talent for dimensional manipulation to get into trouble during that period, but not enough to become a major figure: by the time he was old enough to tap into them, the energies of the Opening were already fading. Still, he had a number of adventures as a youngster, and picked up more magical training than most. Unlike many youngsters, however, he encountered some of the grimmer aspects of the Manifold, and has emerged from adolescence a good deal more ruthless, cynical, and arcanely powerful than most.

   Additional information on the Federation: Apocolypse Setting can be found here.

Terin Aderath: Capsule History

   Like many other youngsters during the Opening, Terin went wandering. Sadly, while he had enough power to trigger open existing gates, he never tapped into enough to generate his own or to navigate the dimensions well – and wound up stranded in a more-realistic-than-most (if you ignored the animalistic human subtypes and mystical Egyptian assassin-monks) version of the Robin Hood tales. He learned a little woodcraft, and hung out a bit with the “merry men”, but he didn’t react well when the Sheriff of Nottingham hung fourteen of his young friends from the local villages. Thanks to his genetic augmentations and other technological advantages he took out the sheriff and several of his men before the survivors caught him.

   They were busy trying to hang him (a difficult task thanks to his smartclothes and genetically-augmented toughness) when they were distracted by a bear attack. While they were busy with that, he was rescued by Kenrath – a wandering priest-monk, who passed through the local villages every little bit. Kenrath was secretly a low-ranking member of the Nightwraith Order – both a secretive order of martial-artist assassins and the settings local “mysterious occult menace”. Kenrath had made time for the boy earlier, having noticed his special resources, innate potentials, ambitions, and secretive tendencies. Now that his spirit had fired with rage and vengeance, that his local village attachments had been thinned, and that he’d quenched a portion of his rage in ruthless murder, he was a virtually ideal candidate for the order.

   After being rescued, Terin willingly took Kenrath up on his offer to take him along as an aide on a circuit or two of his route. He needed an excuse to travel a bit and anyone could see that the man was a bit exhausted and could use some help – and there were no surviving witnesses to his little murder-spree at the moment, so it should be safe enough.

   Kenrath was tired. Projecting, shape-shifting, and manifesting your astral body as a bear is pretty tiring for a witch.

   Terin was an apt student. By the time they’d completed the circuit – and had dealt with a few bandits and wild animals – he throughly respected Kenrath’s abilities, had learned the basics of being a priest of the sheltering darkness – and had learned to tap into the powers of the primal darkness to power minor rituals.

   Kenrath was rather surprised at that – it was a good deal more power than he’d expected his young student to show so early – but it made it obvious that he was well worth recruiting.

   Kenrath took him to the Isvarell Monastery to make the offer. Terin accepted – and, over the next few months, was gradually introduced to the deeper secrets of the Nightwraith Order. He proved an apt student – and was realistic enough to recognize that if he served the purposes of the order, it would serve his purposes as well. He spent the next several years studying, practicing, going out on circuit – looking for potential recruits, just as he had been recruited – and having some minor adventures. During those, he was fortunate enough to find a reliable route home, and started commuting between the Core and his medieval England. He has a Norman Conquest to overthrow.

   Currently he’s started mixing his own goals with recruitment for the order in the city of Nottingham and working for the House of Roses in England on Core Earth. The Nightwraith Order need a group in Nottingham, and he could use some extra resources on Core Earth. He’s going to need allies if he’s going to overthrow the Normans.

   Personally, Terin sees a good reputation and people who trust you as useful tools, well worth the trouble of maintaining them. He’s ambitious, ruthless, and greedy, but he’s not unkind and is determined NOT to act like the Normans. While he sees Set as his personal patron, he is a philosophical priest of secrets and of the concealing power of darkness, not a priest of Set.

   Terin doesn’t know it, but the leaders of the Nightwraith Order would be rather nervous if they knew his full power – or how rapidly it’s been increasing. Perhaps fortunately, he regards it as only wise to keep the real extent of his abilities to himself.

   I’ll be putting up more details of the character sheet as soon as I finish adapting it: it’s an adaption of an older character design that’s being trimmed back to 2’nd level from 4’th to fit in with the campaign restrictions.