Rotos the Lost Groom

Across Arnoc and Kaerok, everyone knows the tragic tale of Rotos and Siphi – two star-crossed lovers brutally murdered. Years before his death, Rotos had fled a money lender, to whom he owed a fortune he could not pay. More than a decade later he returned, rich from a life of piracy, and with Siphi, the love of his life. The usurer still harbored a deep hatred for Rotos, and while pretending all was forgiven once the debt was repaid, plotted his revenge. On Rotos and Siphi’s wedding day, armed thugs burst into the ceremony. They slaughtered the guests, pinned Rotos to the wall with spears, and butchered Siphi before his eyes. In their dying moments, both swore oaths of vengeance. When they were buried, their graves soured. Only two flowers could live in the defiled earth, a pair of eerie-blue roses. Legends unfold that as Rotos and Siphi were murdered separately, their souls were cursed to forever remain separate. As time passed, some say that they have risen back from their graves, swearing to destroy all who wronged them. These stories grew out of the sudden deaths of the mercenaries who killed Siphi. Each corpse was discovered bearing the unmistakable mark of a thrust through the heart from a rapier – Rotos’ preferred weapon – and a rictus of pure terror. More unexplained murders followed. Blood-curdling screams and pleas for mercy were heard from Rotos’ usurer’s estate. When bodies were later discovered there, all bore looks of unbridled terror etched into their faces. Ever since, the mysterious deaths of loan sharks, sellswords, and gangsters all over Anhelt and Peltas have all been blamed on the wrath of Rotos. The dead all sport the telltale signs: a single sword-thrust wound through the heart, and their visage twisted into one of pure horror. Some argue that these are mere copycat attacks, but they are few. No-one knows for sure where Rotos' spirit now wanders. Some still claim a heart-rending howl echoes through the ruins of Rotos' family manor, while others swear they see eerie-blue roses placed by the form of a ghostly, weeping noble there, every year on the night of Siphi's murder. A handful insist they see Rotos’ spirit in the ports of Anhelt, looking in the direction of the Lost Isles, where his beloved Siphi is said to have hailed from. Wherever this roaming phantom now wanders, he surely longs for the embrace of his beloved, and the destruction of all those who share the lives of his killers.