Sylvian was born in Vel Anir in an era of strict rule, when ruthlessness beyond today's standards had yet to be tempered by the reforms of the Revolution. Born into poverty and with no magical ability, Sylvian enlisted in the Guard as soon as he was of age as a means to support his ailing parents. While the monetary gain of his lowly initial rank was meager, it was enough to purchase them a respectable home to spend their twilight years in, and when they peacefully passed away, Sylvian had served too long to imagine doing anything else with his life.

Chiefly because of Azia. The beautiful woman had tended to his wounds after a particularly nasty skirmish with a group of Orcs in an expedition to the Spine gone terribly wrong, and the two of them bonded almost instantly. A combat medic, Azia was not a fan of the war and violence that Sylvian so often sowed, yet the magnetism between them drew them together regardless. In time, the two began living together, marrying soon after.

It was after this marriage that Sylvian's outlook on Vel Anir began to change. For his entire adult life he'd killed for his city, without thinking of the consequences, of the lives he'd taken. Azia's perspective began to change his way of thinking. Her love of life, dreams of peace and constant pacifistic pleas slowly wore on the Soldier.

The final straw was Farris, an elven settlement that Sylvian was tasked with leading a raid on, to raze and rebuild into a proper Anirian city. These elves were not warriors, were not radical anti-human terrorists who wished to see him dead. They were helpless civilians, women and children who feared and cowered for their lives as Artesto took everything they lived for on the whim of a government who saw them as nothing but monsters.

Sylvian returned from that mission shaken to his core. This time, there was no hiding his discontent from his fellow soldiers. They saw his hesitation, his disgust...

His sympathy.

Sylvian and Azia were given several months absence, to let Sylvian recover from the Battle of Vel Farris, and for Azia to give birth to their child, Silas Artesto. Both of them doted on the boy, whose birth only redoubled Sylvian's resolve to quit the Guard and find more peaceful work to support his wife and newborn son. Upon returning to active duty, he was assigned to one final assignment before his dismissal would be processed. Nothing difficult; a band of soldiers had been wounded and needed medical assistance, along with reinforcements should the elves they'd fought back return for another round.

Sylvian and Azia departed, leaving their son in the care of the Guard until they returned.

They did not return.

It had been a trap; word of Sylvian's sympathetic rhetoric had spread, and a group of Guards had decided to punish him for his disloyal thoughts. The couple were attacked by their own men, and Azia was killed. Sylvian narrowly escaped, badly wounded and without a horse to carry him. Assuming he would bleed out and die on his own, his attackers took the body of his wife and left him alone in the dense woods.

Sylvian didn't die; he found a small elven village and pled for aid, renouncing the government that had just betrayed him. The elves nursed him back to health, and Artesto retreated into a low-profile life of solitude, not for his own safety, but for that of his son, Silas, knowing they would use the boy against him if he tried to strike back.

Sixteen years have passed since that fateful day, and the arrival of a new rebellion, stronger than any in recent memory, has drawn Sylvian from his seclusion. Now is his chance to find closure, to end the tragic book of his life on a positive note, to reclaim the glory that should never have been lost in the first place.

And to find his son.