Helior

The Knight of the Sun is among the most instantly recognizable and widely known of the Banner Lords, though some know him as a hero and others as an embarrassing fop. Some see Helior’s dazzlingly expensive full regalia to represent every outrageous extravagance and inflated ego among all the other lords, even the Knight of Knights who rules over them. Those native to Kaerok tend to look more fondly on him, and point out that though he may display his devotion with great flourish, he is at heart a pious and learned man, if a bit obsessive. One thing that none can deny is that he has an incomparable style. Criticisms of Helior often begin with the fact that he is a titular count. This is to say that he is the inheritor of a county that, due to some combination of internal politics, wars, and marriages, no longer corresponds to any physical land. Though defunct, the title still retains historical claims and ancestral rights, and so must persist as a legal entity within the cryptic bureaucracy of the Banner Lords. Because they do not administer a fiefdom, titular lords often pursue full-time military service or venture abroad. But Helior prefers a sort of mendicant lifestyle, disdaining servants and even permanent residences. He most frequently makes libraries and monasteries his destination, and has studied extensively in the lands of the Sacred Order. He stops at holy sites both famous and obscure, inquiring about relics and sometimes buying them with portions of his family fortune, kept on his person in the form of gold coins of very old mintage. The common thread that binds all of his endeavors is, predictably, the Sun of Teleria, as well as wisdom related to astronomy and the movements of stars. The stated goal of all his travels and scholarship is to travel close to the Sun or set foot upon it, or else study it from afar with such scrutiny as to determine its true nature. To critics this is the folly of a mad nobleman whose funds and strength at arms would be better used for the good of the realm, especially considering that in his endeavors Helior has shown remarkable skill with his halberd and mastery of several unique solar incantations. Though he does not live as a professional warrior, he rarely goes untested for long, because in the course of his wanderings he often diverts to challenge himself against a local menace in need of smiting – lip service to the idea of Lordship, perhaps, or a genuine good-faith effort to improve the state of the world. Either way, battle is not his primary focus. Nonetheless it is usually seen as a minor boon for the Knight of the Sun to be passing through one’s hamlet. Children delight at his awesome appearance, and sometimes whole villages grind to a halt to pause and gawk when he passes. He does not stop to give lectures but will gladly discourse on his favorite subject all the same, and sometimes leads a procession of interested listeners as he saunters on foot towards his next objective. On occasion Helior has been confused for another flash spender of coin, the warrior Septimus. He minds not the confusion, citing that on his journeys, he has encountered many a knight who would be a much worse comparison. But what of his goal, mad or sane as it may be? In the course of studying and seeking the Sun, Helior has gained keen theological insights as to its resplendent nature. According to his accumulated lore, in the distant past during the Primordial Age that birthed Teleria, the Sun was a thing of pure Light, indistinguishable from that of the Goddess Lumaya herself. But Light undiluted cannot long coexist with the mortal world, and its nature begins to change, becoming mixed with the terrestrial essence of the created world on which it shines. When the gods were sealed off from Teleria by virtue of a great banishment spell at the close of this Age, the Sun shone on with Light that was no longer wholly Lumaya’s, but of Teleria and its principia. Though divinely seeded, the light that nourishes crops and warms the land is entangled with the branches of natural philosophy that govern such things. Since the Sun is the closest known link to Lumaya and her luminous realm beyond, in studying it one may glean some knowledge of the lingering essence of the Divine, and move all living things one step closer to ultimate understanding. Few could imagine that this glitzy, jolly nobleman with the generous coin purse seeks such an esoteric goal.