Mathell

Name: Mathell

Title(s): Doomguide of Kelemvor

Home/Location: Temple of Kelemvor, Sestra

Birthplace: N/A

Age: 23

Race: Human

Gender: Male

Patron Deity: Kelemvor

Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Appearance:

Mathell has been called sobering, contemplative and even gloomy at first sight. All of the above are generally true.

His naturally fair skin is blemished and covered in reddened sunburns, a testimony to many hard days beneath the sun. Both his hair and beard are an untidy display, each a deep-settled black to go with his attire. That he is not an overly attractive man by natural means is not aided by the ragged exhaustion his face displays. Purplish black bags weigh heavily beneath the faded emerald tone of his eyes, his lips commonly chapped and the cheeks surrounding them gaunt with overexertion.

All of this only adds to the frightening display of his armored suit. Heavy, well-fitted custom plate-mail in tones of black and gray adorn very nearly the entirety of the young Doomguide's frame. A large symbol of the Lord of the Dead sits neatly in the exact middlemost position of his breastplate, decorated in gold tones.

Background:

Mathell has very little to share about himself with the majority who may ask. He speaks readily enough of his station as a Paladin of the Eternal Order, as well as the more practical title of Doomguide of the Judge of the Damned. How he obtained such and his childhood before it, however, is often a mystery.

It took a fellow member of the Eternal Order to piece together the larger scale of his history, and it was lost shortly after as he fell in a battle near Baldurs Gate. Such stories are held now by Mathell alone, though for what he did tell, they would be something close to this:

Very early on his childhood, Mathell was an orphan in the city of Neverwinter. Surviving as any street urchin and child beggar may, he found himself in eventual dispute with a children's gang of thieves and bullies. Unable to defend himself against the near constant taunting of the other children in the docks district, he found himself confronted by two obvious choices. The first was the most natural; to prostrate himself to the older and larger children, and play errand-boy to their whims until he himself was allowed into the gang. The second was the closer to unthinkable. To leave the city entirely, as there was no other district that could afford the oversight of his ragged state.

As a testament to Mathell's curious mindset and spirit even at such a young age, he opted for the second course. It was a small child's naivety and hope that led him to believing life could be better out of the city, and that there existed something more for him. Tragically, only a week and a half out of Neverwinter city, he learned how unfortunate and cruel reality could be.

A six year old child had been allowed to ride in the back of a caravan traveling east from Neverwinter, stopping at the odd hamlet and trade village as they would. The caravan master was an elderly fellow, a childless man but with many nephews and nieces that he was very fond of. He considered allowing the boy to travel with him a sort of endearing gesture to all children, and he after all did not cost a great deal to keep at the back. It was the unnamed caravan master's generosity that led to the scarring of the child Mathell's earliest memories, and also his step into a greater life.

The caravan made the fatal but unknowable error of stopping for several nights in a village yet to be struck by the traveling plague. The last day in, the first of the villagers began to show symptoms of the illness. It was a natural reaction that the tradesmen' loaded their wagons and set off within the same hour. It was the natural oversight that their boy companion was left behind. Mathell had gone fishing. A passtime he had discovered on his first day in the village with a few of the other local children, and had immediately taken to. He found himself gleefully bobbing a line in one of the local streams when the caravan left without him. It was hours before he had realized they were gone. It was a full day before they realized he was. Unable to turn back for fear of the plague, and the boy unable to follow, Mathell found himself in the very center of a dying village.

And he too, caught the sickness.

The dead were piled in terrible rows and stacks of fives and sixes, the base of each sinking mutely into the mud. Spotted skin and ashen faces stared lifelessly from every corner and window, the children he had played with weeks before were cradled mutely in death's embrace. He realized, deep in the throes of the ailment himself, that he would die. It was a very strange realization for the boy, who had only ever thought of life. Death was undeniably a terrifying thing, but yet utterly unknown. He was afraid, even very afraid. But given the way his lungs gave out a little more with every breath, his skin burnt relentlessly as his nails tore at the itch, even the way his eyes faded and saw only gray in the last day.. He finally relented. Death was welcome now, so much more so than life.

It was in that last day that the Kelemvorite priests arrived in the village. Many were offered a quickened end, a painless reprieve from the illness as they transitioned onto the afterlife. Such was however not the case for Mathell. The leading cleric of the uniform himself came upon the waning child, and with a single word and touch cleaned him of the disease. It was like a breath of fresh air, the view of the brightest rays of sunlight without the glare. The burning in skin subsided, his lungs took in new life and his frail body grew stronger with the cure.

Mathell followed the Kelemvorites back to their temple when all was said and done. Very few had survived the wandering epidemic, and he later learned the caravan had perished much further eastwards on the road. It was the boy's good fortune to have been at the earliest site the priests could have reached, and their misfortune to have made such great distance from it.

An acolyte thereafter in a temple along the northern Swordcoast, the boy transitioned from priest to Knight of Kelemvor's Eternal Order, to eventually the station of Doomguide. His wanderings have taken him from one end of the Swordcoast to the next, and many, many times through the Neverwinter area. He never speaks of his time visiting the city, nor the sights shortly outside of it.

Character Personality:

Religion speaks for the entirety of Mathell's being. Since his earliest time as an acolyte of Kelemvor's church, Mathell has been a well-known figure for his unshakable devotion to his god. This stalwart belief has many drawbacks beside the great strength it offers him when overcoming trials of faith, however. Mathell is *often* perceived as an overly prideful, even arrogant young Knight with a morose fascination for warfare and death combined.

This is true only by matter of perception. The Doomguide lives by the strength of his faith in Kelemvor, and the tasks he performs on his behalf. As a Paladin of the Eternal Order, this commonly equates into the hunting and complete annihilation of all cases of undeath, and those who conjure them. An obsession with no end, Mathell is a zealot with the words of his god as his only moral compass. While this is comforting to all who follow Kelemvor in same, it makes him a ferocious and somewhat unreasonable foe to face.

Remarkable to many, and in great contrast to his unpleasant appearance, Mathell is known to be quite the public speaker. His voice is a deep, genuine tone with a pleasing ring around each word. His words themselves are carefully considered and always spoken with the most extravagant of tastes.

Significant Relationships:

Luther Quen: A veteran Triadic Knight, Luther was the first of the Triumvirate to readily include the Doomguide in strategic affairs concerning the rising threat of undeath and their summoners. They remain as close of an example of friends as any Mathell has known, along beside their stalwart comradery on the field.

Cecania Coraline: A former Templar of Helm's Waterdeep clergy and now commonly considered the Sundren church of Helm's Triadic representative, Mathell considers Cecania one of the few genuinely trustworthy citizens of the valley.

Edward, House of the Triad: Luther Quen's younger disciple, Edward and Mathell get along surprisingly well. From their great amount of time in sparring together and the frequent battles they've weathered, they exist as a strange, but blossoming friendship between two distinctly different churches.