The story of the Star Touched Knight is one that’s been told in different iterations for thousands of years. It follows the tale of a young squire who followed a knight, his mentor, to war against a great host of orcs. Many were the names of the great chieftains that knight had slain on the battlefield and many were his scars. He was slain all the same and his body was divided up by the chieftains and taken back to their camps in the Steppes, where his limbs were hung as trophies. So mighty was his legacy and great was his power that the Orc Chieftains became emboldened by his defeat. It was said that they gathered the greatest horde the world had ever seen at the time and marched on the poor folk of the Reach.

The petty lords of the realm scrambled to amass a force to meet them, yet these men’s hearts were weak. Many fled and others stabbed their brothers in the back. The gods had all but abandoned them to their fate. The army that marched to meet the Great Horde was meager, but their hearts were true. The battle that took place was long and bloody despite the opposing army being stronger. The squire of the great knight was present in battle, serving no other master but the memory of his mentor and the gods themselves. Like his master before him, he slew many Orcs, but he grew weary in battle. Grakkan the Black Mace, Zyukkor the Death Dancer, Bumbrakku the Ghost Eater, all of them met their end at his blade. It was not until the coming of the Great Infidel, Ukkor the Bloody Shaman that the young squire did falter. He lost a hand to the berserker shaman and fearful that he would join his mentor in death, prayed to the gods for mercy.

It came in the form of a celestial body. A rock fell from the heavens, landing in the center of the great mass of Orcs and driving them away. All that heard the squire’s prayer simply knew that this had to have been a blessing of the gods. The Orcs saw it as some grand trick played well by the humans that were fighting for their lives against them. The squire survived the cataclysm alongside his companions in battle that heard his desperate prayer in the heat of battle. The rock that fell from the heavens was taken and kept safe in a nearby keep, seen as a holy relic that saved the denizens of the Reach from destruction. What happened next has been a matter of debate by scholars through the centuries:

• The most widely accepted myth is that the goddess Astra appeared before those mortals that gathered in awe of the meteor and made armor from the ore within. She gifted it to the squire and elevated him to be a champion of the gods and a light for all that was right and good in the world. The Star Touched Knight was meant to be one of the greatest champions of humankind that the world had ever seen and would do his part in leading them to a golden age.
• The Star Made Armor was forged from the meteor in the depths of Belgrath by the dwarves in their great forges. It was considered a great work and a great deal of magic was placed on the armor and weapons crafted there. It was then gifted to the squire, who would use it to continue to wage wars against the enemies of humanity.
• The Star Made Armor was forged by desperate mages and lords that wanted to steel themselves against any future invasions. They went as far as to sacrifice living creatures in order to make the magic on the armor and weapons strong, so that it might never fade in the face of enemies as fierce as the ones that nearly brought an end to their way of life.

The armor as well as the sword that were made from Astra’s Wrath were handed down through the squire’s family after he ascended to knighthood. The Merchant Lords of House Vexion trace their lineage to that great hero, though there have been few in the family’s long history that have proven worthy enough to wear the armor and wield the weapons themselves. House Vexion has produced a great many merchants, scholars, and soldiers of fortune throughout their illustrious history. The fortune they built from their many pursuits has seen what remains of the current family become comfortable in their position as one of the governing houses of the great trade city of Alliria.

Quintus Vexion, for a long time was the heir of House Vexion and it was long thought that he’d be a soldier of fortune like some of the men and women of his family that came before him. His father, Abraxas, was a sharp man with a mind for numbers. A thing that Quintus never fully understood. He did, however, understand much about locking blades with his enemies and bedding women. He wasn’t prepared for his father’s death. A chill took him in the night. A breeze. Quintus, a man who had only used his family’s wealth to travel and become a worldly wastrel, would have to sit still and learn his family’s trade in livestock and lumber.

Governing his family’s estate as well as doing his part in helping to govern the great trade city had begun to grow on him. He made a name for himself, doing the best that he could to improve the quality of life of all who served under him and all who lived in the city, leaving most of the harder work to the other councilors and those that served him. After all, it was his father’s belief that the wise man took wiser men than he as his companions.

What interested Quintus more than anything else was the chance to lay his eyes upon the Star Made Armor. None other than the head of House Vexion and the men who were chosen to guard it could even look upon its shining magnificence. Upon entering his family’s vault and seeing it with his own eyes, he endeavored to become worthy of wearing it. He prayed more than he ever had and trained harder than he ever would have previously trained. And yet when he donned the armor, it was too heavy for his form. It was as if the pressure and power that caused the metal to fall from the sky in the first place was weighing him down. After a time, he’d all but abandoned his spiritual and physical journey to see the armor made from Astra’s Wrath his own.

Sacrifice. Sacrifice is what made men worthy of greatness.

Sacrifice came in the form of a skirmish just outside of his family’s estate in the Reach’s countryside. Sir Lysander had been a knight in service to his family for some time and had trained Quintus and many of the men of his family in the art of war. Bandits had beset him, outclassing his skill with superior numbers. Quintus fought to save him, risking his own life in the process. For the first time in his life, he bled and wept for a man that wasn’t his father. A brother at arms came close to dying, just as all of the people of the Reach came close to losing all that they held dear millenia ago. Perhaps the gods remembered. Perhaps the metal from the meteor itself remembered. But it came to him… The Star Made Armor filled his ears with the call of the heavens and guided his blade. Those with wicked hearts that the Ghostwarden could not pierce would flee before the light the gods themselves had given to the blade and to that armor that filled him with wisdom. The armor that removed fear.

That great armor of Vexion, the chosen of the star

Quintus has only worn the Star Made Armor and wielded Ghostwarden on two occasions since then, the power of the weaponry nearly bringing him close to death with each use. The Merchant Lord seeks to continue to balance his place as a part of the greatest city that has ever existed as well as protecting all that is good in the world with his very life.

With every fight, he can see the afterlife drawing closer. The voices of the gods speak loudly within the helmet. They never talked about this in the old stories…

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