Peter Wilhelm, or Ol’ Pete the Cripple, was supposed to become a priest of Pharasma. Instead he became a degenerate gambler and a drunk. Little else mattered in this man’s life except his next drink and his next bet. He sustained his habits through extensive and aggressive panhandling, often faking a pronounced limp in his left leg to exploit the sympathy of his marks. When law enforcement came a knockin’, or when his debts piled up, he would casually stroll past his previous marks, letting out a wretched, high pitched cackle of glee before leaving them.
I got them, I sure did, and they know it now.
Pete’s lifestyle caught up to him when a thug found him right before he left town – and after he had just pissed off anyone remotely sympathetic towards him. Ol’ Pete had racked up a large debt with a local crime syndicate, and Billy “The Basher” O’Brien was tasked to show what happened when people tried to run away from certain kinds of debts. He beat Ol’ Pete half to death in broad daylight, permanently maiming the right leg he had used to fake a limp just hours before. No one alerted the guard.
This is usually where a sad old man dies in the gutter, but some heavenly beings – perhaps aided by Sarenrae, or Pharasma, decided now was not the time for this man to shed his mortal coil. Ol’ Pete was destined for greatness, and so he was healed of all his wounds, except for a limp in his right leg to remind him of his former follies. Visions swept through his mind of all the mighty kingdoms in the land, how the graceful touch of the gods could slowly, surely cleanse them of their evils. Through their mercy, these beings hoped Pete would learn mercy himself.
Even The Basher did his job to support his expecting wife. Such a pretty house they have. The evil wasn’t about some street thug; it was about the system that allowed crime syndicates and street thugs to flourish and even, at times, necessitated their existence as a black market. Bandits, murderers, and rapists were all part of a sad scheme which could be swept away and rebuilt with the proper hands of destiny.
Unfortunately, Pete didn’t react to the mercy of higher powers in the way they expected. He went to the oh so pretty O’Brien house, which he remembered from his visions, while The Basher was away. He took all of Billy’s special things – mostly weapons and armor – and then found his pregnant wife and did to her what Billy did to him. The Basher came home to find this, and a note telling him who did it, and where he was. Of course, this was a trap. He lured a furious, confused Billy out near the old, dried up well and used his new found power to command the thug towards him… and into the well, hidden half way between them. Billy O’Brien broke his leg and died of thirst, alone, grieving for his dead wife and lost child.
The way Peter (it was Peter now) saw it, his newfound patron was right. Such a horrid world we live in, that citizens will watch a man being beaten to death and say nothing of it. He could no longer lounge about, drinking and gambling his life away. He had to rise and change the kingdoms by removing their current leadership through whatever means, and punishing all the people for their sins against him. Only then would they be cleansed and ready to do what is right, and what his patron commanded through strange, ever-changing visions.
It was at this point, of course, that the goodly beings had abandoned Peter… But something darker had taken its place almost immediately. Of course, Peter doesn’t know exactly who’s talking to him, but he knows his cause is just and righteous, and that nothing will stand in his way.
