Editing Character:Thelaos (section)

==History==
Thelaos was born into the royalty of a nation with a shameful legacy of terrible violence.  As such, though he trained and studied all his life for battle, he, as king - like his father and his grandfather - went to war only in defense of his country.  Part of him wanted glory and more of the conquest constantly attempted by others in his corner of the Scavenger Lands, and this part of him only overcame his judgement when the abyssal servant of an unknown deathlord devised a plan to create a shadowland in the heart of the Hundred Kingdoms.

<br />Thelaos was one of many mortal pawns in the schemes of this deathknight.  He was drawn into the dark plan by his own aspirations of power, joining four other kings in an effort to extend their influence more vastly than anyone in the Hundred Kingdoms had managed in centuries.  The abyssal had propped up their opposition as well, and orchestrated some of the bloodiest battles ever seen in the kingdoms since the invasion of the Arczeckh Hordes.  Thelaos and his allies lost, and he was exiled from his own war-ravaged lands with a few of hundred of his men - the only remainder of his influence.  The deathknight's work was not yet done, and he offered Thelaos another chance.  Bitter and angry, the former king took it, leading his men and an army of mercenaries supplied by the abyssal to retake his legacy.  Only when he witnessed his benefactor summoning demons and undead to slaughter both sides did he understand the stranger's true nature.  Thelaos took as many of his men as he could - only a dozen, in the end - and retreated from the battle as it was consumed by an ever-growing shadowland.  He found some refuge in one of the Scavenger Lands' many ruins - a keep that had lain just beyond the border of his kingdom since before the contagion.  His men left the keep to find their own ways and he stayed within its crumbling walls for days, the reality and gravity of his failure setting in.  It was here that the ghost of Niasios materialized and confronted him.  Thelaos, frustrated and angry, called Niasios a demon and accused him of the very same pride that he had allowed to conquer himself.  The two fought, and the ancient ghost defeated Thelaos.

<br />The deposed king was done.  Much as his failure and the fate of his people was the work of beings far more powerful than he could ever hope to challenge, he could only blame himself for his foolishness - and he did.  He had lost his taste for battle and conquest, and left his sword behind in the keep.  He spent years making his way around the shadowland, not as a king or a warrior but a healer.  He did what he could for those who had been displaced by the deathknight's new shadowland and those suffering from its horrors, traveling from one town or small city to the next.

<br />On the day that he exalted, Thelaos was treating the sick of small town miles from the edges of the shadowlands when it was assaulted by a small army of mercenaries.  Thelaos emerged into the street to find the town being burned to the ground and its people killed.  He took a sword from a fallen mercenary and joined the fight, exalting and driving off the force that had attacked the town.  Their fatally wounded leader told Thelaos that they'd been hired by a man in the shadowlands, so once Thelaos had tended the wounded he left directly for his old home.  He met little resistance on his way and found the deathknight, complacent, waiting in the keep that had once been his own seat of power.  The moonshadow was not a great warrior, and had not planned for a solar to exalt at the border of his domain.  When he saw what he believed was a mortal trespassing in his home and possibly even coming for revenge, he did not expect to face one of the swords of heaven.  Not only was the abyssal forced to flee for his life, but he lost an artifact given to him by his master - the daiklave First Blade of the Rising Sun.