Fate of Duskengrim/Eagles Shadow

Full Name: Eagle’s Shadow of the Giant Ground Sloth Clan

High Concept: Heterodox Exorcist-Medium of the Intercessionist Church
Trouble: A Remorseful Conscience Drives Me to Help Others
Veteran Hetashi Military Scout
Grim Face, Soft Heart
World Weary Wanderer

Skills

• +4: Will
• +3: Investigate, Shoot
• +2: Fight, Stealth, Notice
• +1: Athletics, Contacts, Lore, Physique

Stunts

• Medium’s Trance. +2 to any of the Exorcist Order’s skills when in a trance communing with the Blessed Dead—something that requires an extended period of time and requires one round to withdraw from. This is not an ability that can normally be used in the middle of combat.
• Occult Lore Specialist. +2 to Lore when dealing with the supernatural, especially spirits.
• The Second Sight. You can see things that would normally be invisible to mortal eyes. As a result, you can use Investigate and Notice to observe the supernatural.
• Wilderness Scout. +1 to Athletics and Stealth when in the wilderness.

Gender: Male
Age: 34
Appearance and Demeanor: Eagle’s Shadow has light brown skin, long black hair, and black eyes. He is a slim but muscular man, hardened by life as a scout, a mercenary and a wanderer. He wears simple, modest travelers’ clothes, but also wears prominently an amulet marking him as an Intercessionist exorcist so people know that they may ask him for help with supernatural problems. He tends not to speak unless he thinks he has something worth saying and generally had a hard demeanor, a response to all the evil he has seen in the world. Underneath that though, he is deeply caring and willing to help others in need, whether their troubles are a supernatural threat or needing the services of a medium more generally or any other kind of help he can offer.

Background
Eagle’s Shadow grew up in the Heshat Wilderness. From a young age, he had an urge to roam and explore, training as a scout and hunter. But soon he knew the Heshat Wilderness too well and wanted to see more than the forests he grew up in. Stories of the lands beyond Heshat aroused his imagination, both from older tales brought by previous refugees and reports brought by new arrivals. Many young men and some young women were leaving Heshat to work as mercenaries in the various armies engaged in the civil wars beyond Heshat. Most tribal elders disapproved of this, warning of the moral and spiritual dangers of serving as a sell-sword in others’ wars. Some of those who returned from the war reiterated the elders’ message, disgusted by what they had seen and participated in. But this did not step many youth from leaving—some wanted to prove themselves as warriors, others simply to see the wider world.

Eagle’s Shadow was one of those who left to see the wider world. He served as a military scout, using the woodcraft he had learned growing up to serve the military. While he got his wish to travel far and meet people from distant lands, he was troubled by the ugliness of the wars and the uncertainty of who was right or wrong, if indeed any side was. He was troubled by the attacks he participated in, some of which were far uglier than anything he could have imagined any people, never mind himself, doing. None of it seemed very consistent with the Blade Oath he’d taken as a young many when he was trained in the use of weapons.

When he returned to Heshat, these doubts he had while in the military grew on him, troubling his sleep and making it difficult for him to enjoy his life. He eventually sought counseling from mediums of the Intercessionist Church, hoping that the dead might tell him what to do to make up for the evils he had done to those now dead. The Intercessionist Church has been brought to the tribes of the Heshat Wilderness centuries ago by refugees. There, it had taken on a distinct form, syncretizing with the local animist religion and shamanic practices. The Heshat Intercessionist still honors the Blessed Dead, but in the eyes of many Heshati these include non-human ancestral spirits, such as the various clan totems. For this reason, members of other branches of the Intercessionist Church tend to regard the Heshati branch as heterodox and someone theologically suspect. All this meant nothing to Eagle’s Shadow. In the Intercessionist Church, he found a new purpose as he was trained as an exorcist. He now had the ability to put to rest the unquiet ghosts of those who had died during the war, as well as banish malign spirits summoned during the war.

Once his training was complete, Eagle’s Shadow again left Heshati lands to wander the wider world. His youthful curiosity is still there, but he is also driven by a remorseful conscience wanting to make up for the ill he did as a mercenary.