Vanion

Vanion was a famous Judge of Brensa, praised as a hero to this day. Vanion has subsequently become a common name for male children.

Early History

Vanion's exact background is largely confused with a great amount of suspect references and outright hearsay. What is commonly believed is that Vanion was born somewhere in the northern Middle Kingdoms to a peasant woman and an unknown father. His mother raised him until around the age of fifteen, at which time he began travelling on his own.

In reality, Vanion was born on the shores of the Straight in 791YR, in a tiny village which has long since turned to dust. His mother was raped during a raid upon the village, and carried him to term nine months later, though not by choice. She suicidally attempted to drink urine and hemlock, before trying various other concoctions known to kill a child in the womb or prevent conception - all to no avail.

The child continued to grow in spite of her actions, actually seeming to make her belly bulge at a faster rate as she tried harder and harder to kill it. It's said that the woman went quite mad before her ninth month. She died during labor, having been made too weak by the concoctions she ingested and attempts to starve herself.

It isn't certain who named him, but interesting to note is that the Ruendværg word for capturer/hunter is "Fangnr", which is the root of the Sehlandic English name "Vanion." However, this name was not very common at all at the time of his birth, so this is only speculation and may well be a pure coincidence. It's possible that Vanion was simply chosen for its sound rather than its meaning.

He was adopted and raised by his maternal uncle, according to custom and law. His childhood was quite uneventful as far as childhoods go - most of the time he was playing games on the sand with his cousins, collecting shells, tormenting crabs and fishing. When required, he would help his uncle with his nets and help supplement the family's diet of fish. While he was never entirely welcomed and often resented for being another mouth to feed, he was never openly shunned or abused.

Wanderings & Monastic Life

Popular legend states that he travelled for a great deal of his young adulthood across the Middle Kingdoms and the Imperiacht before spending prolonged time at a monestary located in the western edges of the Middle Kingdoms. The stories state that for uncertain reasons, the monestary was attacked and Vanion held off the assaulters. After this event he left and travelled north to Brensa to, so go the tales, bring justice to the land.

The reality of events is strikingly different. At the age of twelve, he decided to take up arms. This is most likely due feelings of resentment at his treatment as a rape-bred bastard, a lack of funds in a house already full of children, or both. He was both unusually fast and strong, standing six feet tall by his thirteenth year, and made a name for himself by using two swords with a high degree of skill. It was during his time as a mercenary that he first encountered The Wanderer, not when he stayed in the Broken City.

The company he had joined fought in several campaigns in the Middle Kingdoms until they were decimated in 810YR. As is the wont of mercenaries, they committed a number of atrocities throughout that period. After their numbers were reduced to a point where it was impossible deny that they simply weren't worth hiring as a company, they became little more than bandits. After several raids upon small villages and hamlets, Vanion broke away from them and sought out a monastery for a life of contemplation.

He took vows of chastity, poverty, obedience and non-violence, attempting to find redemption and absolution for the acts of rape and murder he had committed. During his stay in the monastery, he reached an awareness that his father was in fact the Demon King Setisaxxon. How this occurred is a mystery, but it had a profound effect on Vanion, making him even more diligent in his studies and pious in his actions.

The sanctuary of the monastery was threatened by a group of bandits, ironically the band he was once a member of, and he broke his vow of pacifism in order to kill them off. Though their exact number is unknown, he slew them all single handedly. As a result of his violent action, he was forced to leave his life of contemplation by the monastery’s abbot. At this point, Vanion made his way to the Broken City.

Life in Brensa

When in the Brensatic League he fought alongside the Wanderer during the War of the Staff. Shortly after the disappearance of Sidi the Necromancer, Vanion was elected a term as Consul of Brensa. For his actions in ending piracy on the Seh and finishing the conquest of Theymont he was hailed "the Great."

The few solid, affirmable details of his lifetime appear in the Consular archives of Brensa, where his strategies, military edicts and orders for the training regimen of the Brensatic army have been faithfully preserved, along with his less famous political proclamations and several unconfirmed essays that have been attributed to him.

What is known is that he was a disciplinarian on the verge of being outright barbaric in legal matters, always advising that criminals be punished to the full extent of the law. Contrary to what one might believe, this made him wildly popular with Brensatic citizens of all walks of life – as the executions became more public and drew larger crowds, Vanion’s approval as a consul proportionately swelled and became nearly unanimous within the Broken City. When he passed a temporary law for all pirates to be gelded, branded, blinded and kept in a suspended cage for three days before being hanged, his public approval reached its peak. Whatever else can be said of him, it is clear that Vanion knew the politic of the mob and used it to great advantage.

Oddly, he did not aid the Wanderer in the Hundred Days Affair. In fact, there are rumors that Vanion was working against the Wanderer and party due to his apparent relationship with notorious figures, such as Rohan and Duahden. These theories are rarely given much, if any, credence by established academics of Brensa and tend to be proposals and arguments made by historians who are very much apart from the establishment. For this reason, Vanion’s fame and cult of personality are fully untarnished, so much so that to this day he is actually worshipped as a diety in the city.

Vanion's death at the hands of the Wanderer has been entirely surpressed, and to this day no one is sure who assassinated him.

His Legacy

He was widely popular at the time of his death and many newborn males were named after him, such as Vanion.

Association With Cultists

Not long after his arrival in Brensa, he was sought out by the cultist Duahden and a high place among the Demon worshippers of Brensa. How his lineage was discovered is unknown, but it would seem that Vanion accepted, only to kill off Duahden at a later date in a fit of rage. His motives for joining, for killing the man, and whether he was a servant of his father's will or something else entirely is subject to speculation. What his exact actions were during the Hundred Days affair may never be known.

It should be noted that all members of the Demon worshipping cults that knew of Vanion's membership are all dead, and it is highly unlikely that anyone will ever learn the truth of Vanion's involvement.