Father Mallis

[ScottMunday]

This is the true history of Mallis without any of his lies or misconceptions:

Names: He has been called the following: Mallis Twi, son of Balterus; Mallis Balterus Twi; Mallis the Scourge; and Mallis the Realmwalker.

General Appearance: Although his eyes tend to be unsettling, he looks nearly average. He is taller than many hins, standing at nearly 3 feet and 8 inches. His 96 pound weight is divided through pure muscle that gets stretched across his frame.

Eyes: His eyes are a silvery white, an odd trait among hins; however his mother's eyes were a pale yellow while Mallis’s father’s eyes were a light blue. So when Mallis was born with white eyes, it wasn't thought to be too uncommon a thing.

Hair: His hair is the color of a midnight sky with signs of graying at its tips. He wears it long and slicked back that reaches his shoulders, but has been known to cut it in a a short jagged way in the summer months.

Skins: His skin is tanned from his excessive walking outdoors and is void of body hair, another odd trait for a hin. His body is layered with the scars of his past battles. As well, there is a multitude of dark black Rashemi tribal and Arvoreen priesthood tattoos on top of these scars.

Attire: He wears any clothing he can find in the nation of Narfell, none ever really taking to his fancy. He wears two kukris about his attire, but routinely switches their positions around, making it a hard to discern where he may pull his blades from out of next.

Family: He is a brother to his father's foster child, an elf named Talderas D'vor. He was born to his father, an Arvoreen priest named Balterus, and his mother, an ex-slave and halfling named Vivia. His father ex-Harper Balterus had a quaint and quiet farm and temple on the outskirts of a small Rashemi tribe grouping in the Sunrise Mountains. His mother was a slave to the drow until she escaped during a siege on her drow family's chapel. She found her way to the surface and was taken in by the Harpers, where her rescuer eventually became her husband.

Presence: Seems incredibly sure of himself with a constant look of disdain for others around him. He taps his kukris hilts or his chin often, usually more to gain people's attention rather than as a nervous tick.

Speech: He speaks with a thin Rashemi accent, saying each word with power and rage. It is low toned and with such a deep harsh sound people think someone tried pouring gravel down his throat to shut him up. His tongue is almost as sharp as the blades he carries with him. Although most think him a stupid and foolish man, he is a learned man, being able to speak common, halfling, dwarf, orc, and even goblin.

Strength ( 10 His constant battling has left him as strong as the average human despite his size.

Dexterity ( 21 Despite his dwarven mannerisms, he is very much a halfling. He is faster than most and uses his agility to make up for his lack of barbarian strength.

Constitution ( 12 He is an active man, but tends to favor the bottle a little too much.

Intelligence ( 14 The man's vocabulary shows it all. He is an incredibly learned person and does read despite what people would figure.

Wisdom ( 8 He once had great wisdom under the guidance of Arvoreen, but now whatever wisdom he once had is overshadows by his radical options. Few would think he has little wisdom left to share.

Charisma ( 8 The brash brute is not the greatest leader. His bloodlust tends to uninspire rather than inspire.

Mallis was born on a cold day in his father's temple. His mother did not survive the birthing, and it put a strain on Mallis and his father's relationship. To make matters worse, Balterus’s Harper friends to help console Balterus’s loss placed Talderas D’vor, an orphan Moon Elf child they had found, into Balterus’s custody knowing that Talderas would keep Balterus’s mind on happier times. Throughout their childhoods, the two constantly fought and competed for their father’s attention, but it was always the elf that won. Mallis was found to be a greater use to the neighboring Rashemi tribe where they taught him their barbaric but noble ways. Mallis may seem to hate barbarians, always muttering about Norwick and its barbarian fools. But this could not be farther from the truth. He considers them a perversion of his own noble heritage. That is why he is always bitter toward Norwick barbarians. Also, he spent more time in the jail than the town’s campfire.

When Mallis turned twelve, Talderas left the farm on Balterus’s wish that he find his way in the world and eventually join the Harpers as Balterus did. Finding this a chance to prove to his father that he could be a good son, he developed an admiration for his father’s other profession, that of being a priest of Arvoreen. Mallis became a devout worshiper for the deity, sacrificing most of the little fun he had toward reading scriptures. But this praying and meditating eventually caught the attention of an evil ogre lich living within the Sunrise Mountains. This ogre lich, Denerath, was trying to find a new vessel and disguise to carry on his evil existence. He found it in the devout boy. At such an impressionable age, Mallis was no match for the psionic wailings of the ogre lich. Denerath soon took over Mallis’s body, the boy’s soul becoming a prisoner in its own body.

Ten years is a lot of time for a child to have no control over his own self. What he saw, what Denerath did in his new body, and what Mallis told himself all became a mashed set of incoherent images. The memories and thoughts interweaved into a complex and disorienting grouping of garbled messages, leaving Mallis’s ideas of what happened during this time and what really did happen two separate things. What did happen during this time happened in the following order: Denerath killed Balterus, he attacked the town, Mallis found his willpower again and stood against the lich, and Mallis took back his body, pushing the lich back into his mind. But it was too late. Mallis was left to believe he had killed his own father and this in turn led him into a state of greater depression. Furthermore, the Rashemi exiled Mallis from their nation. But obviously, it was a mutual arrangement.

Mallis became a realmwalker, a loner about the world. No city would take Mallis. No cleric would heal the boy. Mallis wandered the world, still very much a kid, hoping to find a way out of his hopelessness. His brother eventually found him. After all their bickering, they were still family, and the elf took in Mallis. They traveled the world together but now with purpose and with the help of Talderas’s Harper group. They hoped to find an elusive group of nomadic monks that traveled from treetop to treetop in the northern countryside of Amn that had experience with possessions. After months of searching, the monks were found, or more likely, the monks found them, and Mallis was taught meditations to control the constant wailings of the ogre lich in his mind in only a few years.

But Mallis soon came to a realization, a reckoning that caused him to rethink his entire purpose. He had survived so much in his already short span on earth, and on top of everything he was still standing. Egotism swelled in the child, and he saw himself and the world in a new light, as if a great cloak of darkness removed himself from the world about him and he shined them into insignificance. Everything seemed obtainable for the child. He was changed, moreso he continually changed, firstly adopting a language style that more suited his newfound love and admiration for himself. Second, he made himself believe himself great, possibly greater than the gods that had ignored him. Third, he finally understood the purpose for battle, the greatness that could be found in the pure rage and brutality of it. He was ready for the world now.

Now cured, Mallis was sent Mallis to the nation of Narfell, where it was figured that the small halfling could find solace within its diverse crowds. A brash individual even at that age, Mallis found little friends though and took up residence in the crypts and caves to avoid such ‘ignorance’ as he figured. His enemies were strong, but his allies were stronger, and soon he was one of the first recruits for a new organization: The Red Army.

The years past and Mallis found a bit of happiness among the people. He heard few calls from Denerath. Soon it became none. It made him wonder if he had finally demoralized it. If he had, it came at the perfect time. One dry morning, a halfling slave walked into the town of Jiyyd. She had escaped the rest of her caravan’s fate at the hands of the orcs, but not their abuse. Sam and Kanen tried consoling the girl, but she would not listen. She believed all hins were born slaves. To prove that wrong, Kanen in haste pulled the first halfling he could see away from his business and toward the ex-slave. Usually Mallis would have argued first against such violence, but he did not argue. He was awestruck. He knew he loved this girl the first moment he saw her. He had to have her. That girl’s name was Frolly Twosteps.

The years past and Mallis began seeing more and more of Frolly. She learned a lot from him, and Mallis was learning a lot about himself. He found most of his time was with her and not in the battlefield. And just for his own personal pleasure, he would sneak her away, away from the vigilant eyes of Sam, a half-orc that obviously did not enjoy Mallis’s involvement with his ward. Mallis loved her, and soon, Frolly began to love Mallis. Needless to say after this, Sam and Mallis’s fights could be heard all the way from Damara.

After a few years, tragedy befell the lover and the guardian. As Mallis stewed about a cell for months, a terrible force possessed Sam. Although to her benefit Frolly was thinking on her own with the absence of the two, she began growing bitter and sad. Frolly saw little of Mallis in his cell and Sam was not be seen at all. Mallis waited longer and longer every day for her visit until finally she did not come at all. At the end of a year in his cell, she came back, but with a frown taking away the beauty of her face. Frolly told Mallis little, but Mallis got the feeling that it was Sam and the guardian’s god that had caused it. She left Mallis, Sam, and Narfell behind, and never looked back. Mallis wrapped Frolly’s veil, a final gift from Frolly, around his right hand so he would always remember her and escaped from that jail cell that very night. But he was no tracker, and without Frolly’s love, he found that he was lost in more ways than by location. And a certain ogre lich was beginning to break free.

Years past and Grag, a half-orc friend of Mallis’s and new leader of the Red Army, had received reports that Mallis, despite his bullheaded single-mindedness, was losing himself to Denerath again. Grag was not accustomed to lying to his friend, but he had no choice in the matter. Mallis had to be returned and helped back into sanity. A lying messenger found his way to Mallis and told him that Frolly had returned to Narfell. Wishing it true above all else, Mallis snuck his way back into the country only to find a jail cell waiting for him as he entered. To help his incapacitated friend, Grag hired a wizard from the local mage guild of Norwick to help cure Mallis of his curse. But the wizard could not remove the influential lich from the halfling. She knew that only an exorcism could completely cure Mallis of his problem. Arvoreen knew as well. Soon after Mallis died in a valiant fight against a group of orcs attacking Jiyyd, Arvoreen blessed Mallis with a new, but similar body as Denerath was left in the other body, to rot away for all eternity.

Free of the influence, Mallis found the good in himself again and his love for the gods once more. Although still an egotistical bastard, Mallis fought more for others than he ever had done in his entire life. He joined the Red Army, now called the Troff Legion, as their scribe and was making leaps and bounds into normality. To be blessed even more, he found he had seeded a child during the time he had escaped Narfell. Her name was Seraph, and her innocent smile helped wash all feelings of doubt and depression he had in his life. He tried finding love again through his friend Circini. But she did not have the same ideas in mind. Seraph kept Mallis going, but she grew up fast and Mallis had to say goodbye when she found a husband. Left without Circini and Seraph, Mallis began looking to others for love. This became his greatest downfall.

A Peltrach senator found Mallis one night in the bed with that very same senator’s two voluptuous human daughters. Even Mallis knew when to run. Ten more years went by as he traveled the world corner to corner, hunting all sorts of strange and exotic beasts along the way. He met up with a friend he knew from Narfell in Rawlinswood named Nolir, and soon they became a very unsuccessful pair of bounty hunters. This new line of work upset Arvoreen, and as a result, abandoned Mallis for good. After ten years, Mallis returned home to Narfell yet again.

He has become a father figure to Ginger Tealeaf upon his return and with her help is slowly gaining respect among his kin. Also, there is talk that he is pursuing a position of power in the Silver Valley. He has made more enemies too, but for the ones who get to know him know him more than to be a raging lunatic; they consider him as much a paladin, a noble person, than any other person who flaunts the title. That is Mallis.