Pathfinder: Saga of Fate/Helvar

 Difficulty Rating:  **

 Role:  Ranged/Healer

Backstory
In the year 4611 AR, a vampire lord by the name of Draven used his magic to seduce a maiden from a small village in the province of Caliphas, Ustalav named Diona. This encounter led to Diona becoming pregnant. When word across the village spread that Diona was with a half-vampire child, the priest of Iomedae in the village named Sergil, who knew a lot about vampires since he used to hunt them, was asked to lend his wisdom to the situation.

His answer bore both good and bad news. The bad news was that Diona would most likely not survive giving birth to her child. The good news was that he knew a ritual that he could perform during the child's birth that would ensure he would never have to avoid the sun, a trait that most other half-vampires inherit from their vampire fathers.

Diona decided that if her death was almost inevitable either way, she might as well do what was best for her child, so she agreed to go through with the ritual.

Diona gave birth to her child at noon when the sun was at it's highest point, while Sergil repeated prayers to Iomedae. As expected, Diona did not survive her child's birth, and the whole village mourned her loss.

Sergil decided to adopt this child in honor of Diona and named him Helvar, an ancient Azlanti word meaning "Child of the Sun". Sergil wanted to make clear that the sun would not be his weakness, but his strength.

As Helvar grew up, Sergil taught him the words of Iomedae in the hopes that Helvar would follow in his footsteps and become a priest. Sergil also decided to not tell Helvar about the circumstances of his birth, instead telling him that both of his parents succumbed to illness when he was very young.

Helvar believed this for some time before he started to notice that he was aging at a slower rate than the other children. It reached the point where Helvar knew that something was wrong and that it wasn't just that he was taking a longer time to grow. He asked Sergil for the truth, which Sergil wasn't willing to do. Determined to learn his past, Helvar started to ask people around the village who were old enough to know what happened.

The mayor of the village, who had spoken with Sergil and Diona as this was happening, decided he would be the one to tell Helvar about his past. He told Helvar everything, about how his real father was a vampire and his mother died during childbirth. He also told Helvar about how wonderful of a person his mother was, and how much the village grieved for her death. In explaining all of this, he accidentally told Helvar about Sergil's past as a vampire hunter.

After this, Helvar approached Sergil and told him that he knew everything, and that he didn't want to be a priest anymore. He wanted to hunt vampires, just like Sergil used to, so he could find and kill his real father for taking his mother from him. Sergil tried to sway Helvar from his path, but realizing Helvar was insistent, he decided to begin Helvar's training.

Helvar took up Sergil's special musket and trained vigorously under him for 10 years until Sergil succumbed to his old age and passed away. More determined than ever, Helvar trained for 5 more years after that.

When Helvar reached age 60 (human equivalent of 15), a group of vampires came in the night and attacked his hometown. They were led by none other than Draven, Helvar's true father. After waiting for 60 years for Helvar to come of age, he had come to claim his son. They burned the town to the ground and slaughtered nearly everyone there before Draven approached Helvar and offered him to join them, saying Helvar was "destined for much greater things than a life with these pathetic humans", to which Helvar responded, without so much as a word, by spitting in his father's face and unloading a sunlight-infused silver bullet directly into his head. Obviously, this killed Draven instantly, to which the other vampires initially responded with fear, but then proceeded to attack Helvar all at once. In a hard-fought battle in the smoldering ruins of his home town, Helvar single-handedly destroyed every vampire in Draven's clan.

It wasn't long before word reached Caliphas that a town had been completely destroyed. The Ustalavic government sent a group of soldiers to investigate the ruins to which they found a few survivors who told them about Helvar's great deed. At first the soldiers were skeptical, but all of the survivors of the attack told the same story. The commander approached Helvar and offered to recruit him into the Ustalavic military. Since justice was already done, and Helvar had nowhere else to go, Helvar accepted.

Helvar had already received training from Sergil, so his military training lasted briefly before he was allowed to fight on the battlefield. His first war was the War Without Rivals, and Helvar was assigned to fight for Ardeal after Caliphas made the decision to support their side in the war. His combat prowess was quite welcome in their army that mostly consisted of inexperienced peasants who were drafted into service which contrasted with the more skilled fighters from Barstoi's forces. Ardeal would win this war with Caliphas's support, but the victory was bittersweet. After the war, the peasants that fought for Ardeal told stories of a man who fought off several Barstoic soldiers by himself while his wounded comrades were carried to safety. For his bravery, Prince Eduard Ordranti III provided Helvar with a medal of honor and offered him a position as commander, which Helvar turned down.

In the wake of the War Without Rivals, the battleground Furcina became a haunted wasteland known as the Furrows. When word got around to the rest of Ustalav that this was the case, Helvar took it upon himself to put the undead in this area to rest, as dealing with all kinds of undead, vampires included, was what he had trained for. He told Prince Ordranti that he would temporarily leave service in order to pursue this goal, but he could summon him should another major war break out. Since Helvar was so well-respected in Caliphas, the royalty there had little objection to this.

Helvar spent the next eighteen years venturing to places where no other man would dare to go, starting with the Furrows. Once Helvar was mostly finished with that, he went to other undead "hotspots" in the surrounding area like Virlych still in Ustalav, Lastwall, and the Isle of Terror. In the year 4711, Helvar received a letter from Caliphas, signed simply with the name "Ordranti". It was a call to arms.

This letter was the only contact he had had with Caliphas since leaving eighteen years ago, and he had not been keeping up with current events in the remote town of Sturnidae that he had been staying in.

When Helvar returned to the capital, he was in for quite a surprise. Over the eighteen years he was absent, Eduard had been supplanted from the throne by his late brother's supposed son, Reneis. The scheming Carmilla Caliphvaso, Reneis's aunt, sat on the throne beside Reneis as princess in an incestuous relationship.

Reneis explained to Helvar why he was called. Political tensions between major powers in the Inner Sea were very high, and the entire Inner Sea was on the brink of an all-out war. As other nations began to make their decisions as to which factions to support, Ustalav was divided on their decision of which faction to fight for. Sovoida (the collective term for the nine counties of Ustalav still governed by nobility), led by Reneis and Carmilla, chose to fight for the Devil Prince Judas, who wished to unite the Inner Sea under one powerful (and quite corrput) regime. The Palatinates (the collective term for the counties in Ustalav led by citizens' councils) on the other hand decided to fight for the Paladin Queen Viniana, who wished to unite the Inner Sea under one peaceful government with the people's best interests in mind. Ustalav's decision to side with Judas would put them at odds with their long peaceful neighbor Lastwall, who had chosen to side with Viniana. Helvar had befriended many people in Lastwall during his time there and was welcomed as friend, so he was very opposed to his own nation betraying them. He also vehemently opposed Judas's ideals.

Helvar had to soon make a decision on who to side with. Would he support his homeland, the nation he had made a promise to serve and the one that made him into the soldier he was, or would he support the nation who's ideals aligned with his and had accepted him as one of their own?

After some hesitation, Helvar reached his decision. He removed his medal of honor from his coat, laid in out in front of Reneis's feet and politely told him he didn't wish to fight for Sovoida, and that he'd rather fight for Lastwall. The following exchange then ensued:

Reneis: So you're saying you are committing treason?

Helvar: I am sorry your majesty, but this cause is one I simply cannot stand behind.

''Carmilla: I should have known better than to expect one of Eduard's lapdogs to fight for us. General, inform the other soldiers that if they see Helvar in any of the counties of Sovoida after two weeks have passed, they have permission to shoot him on sight. Begone, traitor!''

Helvar was then escorted by guards out of the castle. On his way out, he saw Carmilla pick up his medal of honor and throw it in the burning fireplace. Despite how poorly the exchange with Reneis and Carmilla went for Helvar, there was one good thing that came from it: Helvar no longer had to feel any regret for choosing to fight against them.

Helvar made his trip to Lastwall, and was welcomed with open arms. Watcher-Lord Ulthun II didn't offer Helvar the title of commander since he hadn't witnessed his prowess on the battlefield, but he did place him next to some of his greatest warriors.

The Inner Sea War was not easy for Lastwall, however. The nation, along with its temporary ally Nirmathas to the south, was surrounded by enemies. Lastwall had Sovoidan forces from Ustalav to the north, and Nirmathas had forces from the city-state of Korvosa in Varisia to the west, and forces from Molthune and Nidal to the south, all under Judas's faction. To the northwest they had to deal with orcs from the Hold of Belkzen who were temporarily fighting for Solomon. The soldiers of Lastwall had been trained to fight orcs long before the war, but never in a unified force. Because of this, Lastwall and Nirmathas fought on the defensive for most of the war.

Thanks to Helvar's help and the strong leadership and resolve of Lastwall's soldiers, they managed to pull through. The same couldn't be said about Nirmathas's less-disciplined warriors, however, who fell to Molthune's strong military.

When the war was finally over, Helvar was commended for his bravery and might on the battlefield. In fact, the Precentor Martial for the Infantry School at the Crusader War College offered Helvar to become a fort commander, defending Lastwall's borders against potential threats. Helvar turned down the offer, saying that he wished to hang up the soldier's life. Instead, Helvar resumed his own crusade of hunting down undead and putting their spirits to rest, this time with a focus on the spirits of those who had fallen in the battlefield.

Helvar travelled further southeast to the Andoren coastline, the site of the bloodiest battle in the entire Inner Sea War. It was said that hundreds of thousands of soldiers lost their lives in a battle that ultimately ended as a stalemate. It was considered to be so dangerously haunted that trade ships would avoid Andoran's coastline altogether.

Helvar did his best to quell these unrestful spirits, but the task proved to be too daunting even for someone of his talents. He spent the next twenty years of his life in other parts of the Inner Sea Region, but he swore to himself that he would eventually return.

In the year 4741, Helvar received a letter from a researcher living in Fort Inevitable, one of the River Kingdoms. The letter told of a strange ruin known as the Emerald Spire, which as of late had been the source of undead attacks on the village. The researcher offered Helvar to go into the Spire and stop the attacks while at the same time making the area safe for the researcher to enter and document, in exchange for a large sum of gold.

Helvar made his way to Fort Inevitable, and that is where his role in Saga of Fate begins.