Soulless

The being now known only as the Soulless was once known as Sir Ector. A stern and strong knight of the Free City of Delanos, Sir Ector became a member of the Cult of K’Leth during its early years and rose quickly to the inner circle of the Knights Revenant. Though not a cruel or vindictive man, Ector believed in the hierarchical nature of his society and that low-borns should know their place, a stance that made him a natural fit among the higher ranks of the Cult. For hundreds of years Sir Ector lived as a Knight Revenant, his soul being transposed into a new body as the last grew old, sick, or battle-injured. A tireless warrior, Ector was regarded highly by his fellow Knights Revenant – not only for his skill in combat, but for his generalship and strategic wit and vision. Often the first choice as leader when the Cult of K’Leth was forced to do battle, his rise to prominence might well have continued were it not for the infamous Battle of Mournsorrow. The Aravian authorities learned that the Cult had made the forlorn site, in an untamed land, a stronghold, and dispatched a force to drive it out. Their attack came at the time when a number of Knights were going through the critical stages of a soul transposition ceremony. Sir Ector was among them. Cultists fell to Elven spears and swords. Elves were hacked down with Cult axes and cudgels. Were it not for the ruthless cool of the Soul Shepherd leading the ceremony, who rallied the Cultists and organized the defense against the surprise attack, the Elves would surely have been victorious. Despite the Cult's victory, the damage done by the interruption to Ector and the other Knights Revenant was devastating. Caught during mid-transference, their souls failed to lodge properly in their new host bodies. The other Knights Revenant perished, but Ector clung on to life, a sliver of his being having successfully pierced the essence of his new host. But while he was able to draw slowly back from the brink of death, he found himself forever changed. Sir Ector was no more. Most of his soul was gone. He had only the vaguest memories of his past, just ghostly half-recollections that he feared were mere products of his imagination. From that day forth, the Knight Revenant once known as Sir Ector became known as the Soulless. The draining of so much of Ector’s soul has left little of the former man behind. But some still remains: his disdain for those he considers his lessers can be heard in his miserable ramblings, and he has lost none of his combat prowess. Even so, his existence is one with little emotion, a gray and desolate realm of which he is a lonely king. Free of emotion, immune to pain, and protected by his heavy enchanted armor, Ector is immovable on the battlefield, and he gives his mountain-like defense a wicked edge with the hacking of his great war ax. The bitter existence of the Soulless is alleviated only when he can claim the souls of others, often in the midst of battle – then he can experience second-hand those last fleeting sensations of raw emotion, potent draughts of fear and terror. In an effort to feast on these feelings and regain the emotions he has lost, he distorts soul gem magic to snare and imprison the souls of his foes into his weapons and armor, snagging them during combat and storing them up to experience their feelings at his leisure. Their tormented agony is still visible in the warped faces and clawing hands that adorn his shield and breastplate, their horror-stricken images feeding the Soulless and reminding him that, against the odds, he still lives and can still feel. The spirits he binds within his armor fade over time, and so the Soulless finds himself on an eternal quest, collecting the darkest of emotions as he tries in vain to fill his meaningless existence.