(Ironically, his second name means "stone soul". Hope you choke, Lady of Fire!!!)
Ilias grew up in a small town in Northern Teutonia. A birthmark in the shape of a blazing sun on his left forearm lead all who knew him to believe that he had been marked out to do great things for the light, and at a young age he quickly moved up the ranks of the hand of the light, largely due to shady political deals and more than a few convenient deaths of higher-ranking party members. Ilias found being a follower of the Light useful as it gave him power not only spiritually but over legions of fanatics who would follow orders with little question, as long as they came from above. Ilias made the long journey to Southern Teutonia partially to ensure that the predicted catastrophe did not occur, and partially because he was intrigued by the power which could cause this...
Skill Points Required Cumulative Points
Subterfuge I 15 15
Subterfuge III 15 30
Subterfuge III 15 45
Subterfuge IV 15 60
Alias I 10 70
Alias II 10 80
Improved Alias 5 85
Forgery 10 95
Conceal Item I 5 100
Conceal Item II 5 105
Backstab I 8 113
Backstab II 8 121
Light Fingers 15 136
Streetfighter I 5 141
Streetfighter II 5 146
Agility I 5 151
Agility II 5 156
Agility III 5 161
Agility IV 5 166
Light Armour I 3 169
Light Armour II 3 172
Light Armour III 3 175
Light Armour IV 3 178
Spiritual Awakening 20 198
Devotion I 10 208
Devotion II 10 218
Spiritual Power I 15 233
Spiritual Power II 15 248
Spiritual Blessing I 10 258
Miracle I (Spirit Speech) 10 268
Miracle II (Spirit Strike) 10 278
Miracle III (Uncursing I) 10 288
Miracle IV (Spirit Sweep) 10 298
Speak Common 1 299
Background Skill: Card Sharp 1 300
For anyone that's interested, here is an account of the most eventful day-and-a-half of Ilias' life. I apologise if I misquoted anything; my memory is not 100% accurate and Ilias may have doctored parts of it on his way out; he was like that.
Ilias arrived to the Lightist camp a little later than most on the Saturday. He was initially annoyed that, rather than finding out much information about the explosion, the others there seemed to be sitting arond giving information to every curious inhabitant of the forest, or worse, the Kobold who had taken up residence close by. He obtained a report of all that had happened, and waited at the camp for a while for the return of Eigar, who was apparatnly making some kind of measurement. During this time, feeling quite useless and uninitiated, Ilias called upon the power of the light to bless his left hand to scatter his enemies like the shadows they were. The grace of the light flowing through his body helped him decided it was time to take a stronger course of action. It appeared that earlier in the day at least one of the Kobold had stuck their noses too far into where it didn't belong, and his body had been returned to the base camp. Having arranged suitable codewords with the rest of the camp, Ilias returned to base and dressed up in the dead Kobold's clothes. Despite not speaking the language of the Kobold, Ilias was sure that the light would protect him on his sacred mission. He passed back through the lightist camp and further into the forest. He found the Kobold base deserted, but as he started to explore further into the forest he came across a strange black figure with two swords. Obviously a servant of corruption. The following dialog followed:
Black Figure: What is the nature of the person I see before me? Ilias: I am Tikipa of the Kobold. Black Figure: No you are not. Ilias: <Uh-oh. This is clearly a being of some power. Time for some politics...> Ilias: You are very wise. May I ask who it is before me? Black Figure: The darkness has a name. That name is Apothis. What are you doing here? Ilias: Without the darkness there could be no light... as you see, we also have use for darkness to hide our actions. Apothis: Indeed. Tell me, what do you know of this valley? Ilias: I hear that there is a being of fire, which would spill fire from beneath the earth over all this ground, and a spritit of earth, which would contain the fire within itself. Apothis: Oh? Ilias: Hmmm... what would you think of that happening? Apothis: The fire sounds... pretty. Ilias:<I may have just aided corruption. Quick! Lies are the answer!> Ilias: ... I have also heard that if you feed these beings some kind of hard, round apple found in this forest, they shall become weaker. If you wish to defeat the earth, you should feed it lots of these. Apothis: Really? Who told you this? Ilias: It was... one of the orcs of the humacti. I apologise that this hearsay may not be accurate... Apothis: No, the Humacti are notoriously honest... Ilias:<Mwahahaha>
Apothis starts leaving
Ilias: Wait! As I have shared this information with you, perhaps you could lend me some power? Cover me with darkness so the Kobold may not see where I go. Apothis: Hmmm. I could make you invisible. You wouldn't like it. I would have to put your soul in a cold place. Instead, I shall give you some information. The elementals feed on souls. To feed the fire, sacrafice your enemies by throwing them into the volcano. To feed the earth, sacrafice them by burying them alive.
Apothis disappears.
Slightly further down the path, Ilias was startled by a Kobold charging towards him. It barked something at him in a strange language, which sounded something like: "[tengraw] Reinforcements! Get a move on!" and then it ran past. Ilias continued down the path, where there were a large number of Kobold standing round looking into the volcano. Their leader was writing something in a notebook. Ilias sidled up beside him without two much difficulty. There leader was wearing a labcoat. A labcoat with very easily accessible pockets. One of these pockets contained what appeared to be a glass rod, obviously tainted with corruption. He also had some kind of instrument tied around his neck with some loose string. With a delicate flick of the wrist, Ilias relieve the scientists of these items before strolling noncallantly off into the woods, without needing to say a word. His return to the lightist camp was greeted with "Oh, you have the bomb!" Apparantly the rod had been some kind of explosive.
Finding the Eigar had not yet returned, Ilias changed out of the disgusting rags he had been wearing and set off with the captain of the foot to find him and report about the instrument and what he had learned from Apothis. It wasn't long before they found Eigar. He was standing at the Volcano. Between him and the crater stood Apothis. It looked a lot like Eigar was trying to put the extremely magical being into the hole which became more powerful when things were put into it. Ilias shouted at Eigar to stop, but Eigar didn't react. Ilias' hands slid under his tabard, where he grabbed his two concealed daggers. Right before Ilias struck out against Eigar a bolt of blackness from Apothis threw everybody to the ground. Apothis tried to flee, moving the fighting away from the rim of the volcano, but Eigar returned him to his durance. Ilias coneyed all his information to Eigar, who was very happy, because it seemed that without their instrument, the Kobold could not make any measurements, and this would annoy them a lot.
Just then a team of Kobold cam over the top of the volcano. Their lead scientist saw Ilias and shouted "grab that man!" at which point two rather burly Kobold grabbed his left and right arms. <What is going on?! I am a master of disguise! He cannot recognise me now from earlier! He barely even saw me!> The captain of the foot became quite vocal on the issue, and the guard holding Ilias' left hand let go to go and confront him. <Ah, the light provides.> Ilias struck the remaining guard squarely in the chest with his left hand, and felt the stored vengence of the light flowing out of him into the Kobold [repel 10]. Finding himself suddenly free, Ilias bolted back towards camp. Behind him, noise erupted. It sounded like many small magical creatures dying.
Ilias was pleased.
Deciding that it had been a very good day, Ilias retired for the evning. The next day was to be a very bad day. Back at base camp, Ilias heard that the tribesmen were increasingly becoming a problem. That night he forged a plan to take a few lower-ranking lightists and pretend to be messengers from the tribal camp. They would tell the tribalists that the lightist camp was deserted, and bring them in close. Once they reached the camp, which would be guarded by one low ranking officer, Ilias would stab as many as possible up, and when he shoulted "Heilige Steil!" The full force of the Light would come flooding out of their tents, hopefully eliminating the tribespeople for good. <mmmm, genocide.> Today, he decided to bless both his hands to do the work of the light, as it had worked so well the previous day. He was initially required to search for this "crystallized magic" which had formed overnight. He slipped one crystal into his pocket <I can think of several uses for this.> Ilias told the soldier who was coming with him to make preparations, as he went to get disguised, and also forged a letter saying that the lightist camp was abandoned and they had been stockpiling magic crystals. By the time he returned to camp, he found that his companion had wandered off into the forest on his own. Ilias went to search for him, and on his way met one tribesman who he managed to convince to come back to camp. A little backstabbery later and Doctor Schneider had a new toy to play with. Returning to the forest, he came across a small group of tribals:
Ilias: Greetings! Hae you seen my brother? He has a big bl... oh, where are you taking that fellow with the big black beard? Tribesman: He is a spy. He tried to kill the Shaman. We are taking him to the Volcano to sacrafice him to the Lady of Fire. Ilias: Is the Shaman alright? Where is he? I have an important message for him. Tribesman: He lived. If you run you may find him at the base before he returns to camp.
Ilias went to the tribal base, but there was no-one there, so he went to the volcano instead. On his way, he found another mana crystal. He now had one earth and one fire crystal. When he reached the volcano, he found another Shaman in the process of sacraficing the lightist spy, who, to his credit, did not crack and reveal Ilias. After the ritual, Ilias handed over the letter and the two crystals as a sign of good faith. The Shaman sent two tribespeople to go with Ilias to the lightist camp. As they walked there, Ilias noticed the sun was directly overhead, and felt the power of the Light fading from his hands. No time to renew it now though. By the time they had reached the camp, the character party had also arrived.
Ilias: Greetings, Children of the Light. Is this a bad time? Dr. Schneider: No, it is alright. Ilias: Maybe we should come back later? Dr. schneider: No, now is fine. Ilias: OK. [Backstab triple]
It did not take the tribals very long to figure out what had happened. Ilias away from the fight to see the lightists and character party standing looking at him with open mouths. <Fluch! I am too subtle for mein own good!> He looked behind and saw also that a larger number of tribals and a significant number of Kobolds had also just approached the base. Ilias fell to the ground.
Shaman Noom: What is going on here? Tribesman: This filthy scoundrel stabbed me in the back! Ilias: ... ... ... where am I? what happened? Shaman, is that you? Tribesman: I think we have another traitor. Kobold Scientist: Hmmm, he looks a lot like one who infiltrated our camp yesterday. Ilias:<Damn that Kobold. I must remember to bring him to the doctor. She would like to examine his eyes which can see more than any mortal.> Shaman Noom: Take him away...
Ilias had dropped one dagger, but managed to conceal a second one and his only other on-hand possession, a deck of cards, before he was carried off.
Ilias spent about 5 hours in a cell. Although he was tied so he could not exhert spiritual power against his captors, he did at least have the ability to say his daily devortions, and send some spirit speech from his cell. (OOC note: I know that the messages were not delivered perfectly because the spritits were a little fuzzy, but I am just writing Ilias' experience here.) After concocting an evil escape plan, he spent most of the rest of the time shouting about spritis and needing to speak to a Shaman immediately. At about 5 O' clock, Ilias was dragged from his cell, and he sent a spirit to his fellow children with the message "I am about the be sacraficed in the volcano. Please come and help." Ilias was brought back before Shaman Noom:
Ilias: Shaman, I must speak with you at once. Shaman Noom: Very well, come into my tent. Guards, where is that traitor you were bringing. Tribesman: He'sthe one you just invited into your tent Shaman. Ilias <I knew this disguise was good.> Shaman Noom: Why does no-one in our camp or back at base recognise you? Ilias: I came here on my own with my brother, we did not meet many other people. But please, there is something urgent I must tell you.
Ilias' explanation went something like this: the two magic crystals he had given to the Shaman earlier in the day came from base camp, and were not ordinary. They contained spirits of earth and fire. Theses spirits had fled into Ilias when they were presented to the Shaman. The spirit of earth later possessed him and caused him to attack his brother. It left him when he was taken down. However, while he was unconscious during his captivity the fire spirit had come to him in dreams, warning him that the children of the light were about to perform a ritual in their shrine which would grant infinite power to the earth elemental, who would then crush the Lady of Fire. The spirit had also given Ilias a sign to prove his gift of prophesy. Refusing to untie Ilias' bonds, the Shaman had a tribesperson reach into his pocket to find... the deck of cards, which had not been found when he was searched earlier. Ilias claimed these had been given to him by the spirit while he slept. He asked the Shaman to take a card from the deck, and palce it on the ground in front of him. Ilias called out to the spirits to reveal to him what the cards was. He said it was the five of clubs. It was. <Sometimes I amaze myself> But the Shaman was unconvinced. He tried to discern the magical and spiritual nature of both the cards and Ilias, but found nothig unusual.
Shaman Noom: That is very impressive, but I have heard of tricksters who can do such things. I have a solution. I shall perform a ritual which shall force him to answer me truthfully.
Shaman Noom begins performing a ritual. Ilias is terrified- until he remembers he is a politician; telling the truth is his job, and it has never caused problems before.
Shaman Noom: Are you a memeber of the Flower Tribe? Ilias: <Curses!> No.
Shama Noom: Did the Lady of Fire give you these cards? Ilias: <Who knows how far reaching the power of this corruption reaches? Perhaps she did.> I do not know. Shaman Noom: From whence did you obtain these cards? Ilias: <Actually, good question... did I pick them up when I was stranded in Stutgart? Or maybe the time I went to Hamburg... maybe they were in the ex-chancellor's coat... I should probably stop thinking so hard about this...> I do not know. *ritual over* Shaman Noom: You are clearly not one of us. Why did you lie? Ilias: ... Alright, I confess... I am of the Weasel tribe. Shaman Noom: Really? Then why did you disguise yourself as one of us? Ilias: I- I was afraid. I just wanted to come and help the Shaman. Tribesman: The Weasel are known for this kind of act, Shaman. Shaman Noom: That is true...
*enter another tribesperson Tribesperson: Shaman Noom, the children of the Light say their spirits report we have one of their number in captivity. His name is Ilias. Ilias: <String of profanities!!!> Shaman Noom: Are you this Ilias? Ilias: No. Shaman Noom: Go back to the children and tell them we do not have their prisoner then. I see only one way to settle this, we shall bring the prisoner before the Lady herself.
Ilias is dragged towards the volcano. On the way, a spirit come to him with the following message: "Ilias, if you are still alive, reply to this message, and we shall come and save you." Unable to speak aloud to the spirit without being noticed, he nods in the direction he heard the voice coming from. He feels sure that the message shall be returned.
At the Volcano, many tribespeople have gathered, drumming to summon the lady.
Ilias: Drum louder! Let the whole valley hear us! *starts drumming too.*
The Lady Appears.
Shaman Noom: Lady, we bring this creature before you. Is it one of yours? *The Lady of Fire looks at Ilias, but cannot really tell very much about him. Ilias: Lady, we have little time; the Children of the Light are performing a ritual as we speak to grant infinite power to the earth. Lady of Fire: The earth shall not be stronger than me. Tell me, would you like to be given to me? Ilias: I think I could serve you better in other ways, Lady. Lady of Fire: Step forward. Ilias: <Alright, keep her talking, the Light shall soon be here. If they decide to sacrafice you, cry out to the light to witness this heresey as you stand on the edge. Let's hear what she has to say.>
This is what the Lady had to say: [Red triple / Red triple / Red triple]
As Ilias fell into blackness, he just about heard a spirit of the light deliver him the message: "Alright, just let us know when you're going to be sacraficed and we'll be there..."
Moral: Be more trigger-happy with the Ultimate Faiths.
Thanks to Entimix and Jacob for the help with doing the tables (it has been moved from this page to disk!) Also, "Ilias Steinseele", without quotes, is a googlewhack. :D