Many of the older members of the Brehgan family insist they are descended from some great hero whose name was lost to history, though few people - the tale-tellers themselves included - really believe it. The truth is they have been living in the Docks for the last twenty generations, and every pretty much expected them to stay there for the next twenty. Working as fishermen and laborers, the Brehgan clan seemed fated for a modest and mundane existence. That is why, 26 years ago, it came as no small shock to Randal Brehgan when his wife bore a babe with a golden halo of light above its brow. This was surely an omen.

The child was named Caldor after an angel from a myth favored by his father, and from a young age he was groomed to join the ranks of Lothian's priesthood. His father ensure that the boy embraced righteousness and justice, encouraging him to help the community, and he spent as much as he dared on Caldor's education, making sure that the boy learned to read and write. When the time came, the Church was only too eager to have a child of so obviously divine origins, and even paid to have him moved to the more prosperous Temple District.

Life became very different for Caldor then. The scene in the Temple Distract was as different from the docks as he could have imagined. He benefited from amenities he had only dreamed off, and for the first time saw shrines to gods besides Lothian (though the older priests discouraged the interest he expressed in them). Still, he made sure to visit the docks once each week, using what he learned at the temple to improve the community as best he was able.

However, Caldor did not find everything in his new life to his liking. As he progressed in the priesthood, he found that many of the Church's teachings were at odds with the values he had developed as a child, or even at odds with themselves. While many of the priests seemed to be wholly dedicated to the betterment of mankind, there were just as many who were more concerned with mankind serving Lothian, and Caldor found many of the Church's laws unnecessary, and even a few that he found unjust. He voiced his concerns to his elders, but they assured him that if he trusted in the wisdom of the church all would be well. Caldor did his best to lay aside whatever doubts he had, and in time was fully initiated as an itinerant priest, preferring to focus on good works over administering Church law and business.

It went well for a time, but one day a man walked through the doors of a temple Caldor was visiting, an older man - clearly wounded - leaning on his shoulder. The older man was barely coherent, but was bleeding badly from a wound in his belly. The younger man explained he was a beggar who usually set up outside the tavern in which he worked. He had grabbed the arm of a sellsword entering the pub, asking for some coin, and the sellsword give him a dagger in the gut for touching him. Caldor assured the young man he would do all he can, but before he could heal him, the resident curate interceded, requiring a donation to the temple before any healing spells could be administered. The beggar, being a beggar, could scarcely afford a the requested silver piece, which Caldor quickly explained would not be a problem. The curate, however, disagreed.

He expressly forbade Caldor from healing the beggar until he or the man helping him had made a donation. Caldor retorted that he would not stand by and watch a man die when it was within his power to save him - that was not Lothian's will. The curate began to roar about an itinerant priest lecturing him on the will of Lothian when Caldor reached out touched the man, casting a simple healing spell. The man's wound closed up, and a hush fell over the room. Caldor had willfully denied a direct order of a superior within the Church, but his magic, granted by Lothian, had worked nonetheless. The other priest were unsure of how to react, standing in silence and the beggar returned to the streets.

Caldor was forbidden from performing deeds in the name of Lothian while the Church decided what was to be done, but that didn't take long. Caldor was called before a small gathering of curates and they explained that there were indeed precedents for this. It was possible, though rare, for a priest to defy the will of the Church without defying the will of Lothian. They recognized his status as a cleric, though he would be removed from the Church's hierarchy, instead operating independently as a priest errant.

Caldor was unsure of what to make of this. He hadn't done anything wrong, had he? If he had, surely Lothian would have revoked his gifts. He found himself puzzling over the quandry of how one could defy the Church without defying Lothian, remembering the doubts of his younger days. He began visiting temples of other faiths, even befriending other priests, and still his powers continued to function. Deciding that this bore further investigation, he gathered as much material on the Church as he could - and not only that which had been written by the clergy - and returned to the docks for a time. He studied books on the faith that were considered to be borderline heretical, as well as secular books that detailed the history of the faith from an outside perspective, and all things led him to only one conclusion - the Church served the Church, not Lothian. They were not his enemies, else why would he grant them his favor as he did to Caldor? But much of what was written was irrelevant. All of the superfluous or overly harsh laws were pointless, and maybe even some of the fables from the holy books.

Dogma was unnecessary, perhaps even harmful, Caldor decided. He no longer believed in the Church, but he still believed in Lothian. He felt as if he understood his god better than ever, but at the same time Lothian had never been a greater mystery to him. He had found new purpose, though - to determine the truth of his own faith. If most of what the Church preached was not the word of Lothian, then what was? What was his god's true message? The real essence of what he stood for? This is what Caldor is determined to learn, though he doesn't imagine it will be easy. He'll have to find most of the answers on his own, piecing together what he can from various sources, and from what he knows to be right.

Today Caldor performs much as he did as an itinerant priest, moving through Ptolus and performing good works in Lothian's name, and visiting the Docks once each week. He still works with the Church often - they're purposes often overlap, after all - and remains on good terms with several priest, though there are of course others who regard him as letter better than a heretic. More than anything else, though, Caldor now disagrees with the Church's suppression of knowledge - of condemning arcane magic or technology, of understanding other faiths, or of understanding the earliest days of the history of Tarsis. He has come to believe that next to compassion, education and enlightenment are two things everyone to strive for, and he seeks to empower people to find truths as he has rather than insisting them to take the Church's word on all matters.

Years ago, a young acolyte of Shelyn fell for the charming smile of a handsome traveler. The affair was shortlived pleasant, and both of those involved parted on pleasant terms. The result of the dalliance was Simon Pitivo. From a young age, Simon was a talented youth, though his mother saw to it that his talents were directed towards creative pursuits rather than martial ones. He grew up learning how to sing, to play the harp, and how to help others find beauty in the world around him. However, he found few friends among the other young boys of Sandpoint, though this was due more to a lack of common interest than any from any boyish cruelties (the sole exception being an older lout named Jubrayl Vishki).

Instead, Simon fell in with the children of the Kaijitsu family. They themselves holding Shelyn as their patron goddess, it was only natural that he ran into them from time to time, and they were much more interested in artistic pursuits than playing at "soldier and goblin." He grew close to all of the children of the family, but as Ameiko was only a few years older than him, it was to her that he became closest, and as children they were nigh inseparable, with the fiery young noble helping to coax Simon out of his shell and embrace his more adventurous tendencies. In time he came to look on her as an older sister.

As he neared adulthood, Simon entered the clergy of Shelyn, following in his mother's footsteps. Life was pleasant, but a bit mundane. Something gnawed at Simon, but he had good friends, a loving family, and no real enemies (though the gang that Jubrayl was rather insistent in its protection rackets), so in spite of his bouts of restlessness, Simon decided that relative uneventfulness was a small price to pay for such an idyllic life. In time, he took over most of his mother's duties, began courting a nice young girl named Mara, and was getting ready to settle down. And then the goblins came.

He was attending the Swallowtail festival with Mara during the raid, and to his horror, she was one of the first victims of the attack. The two were confronted by a cackling goblin, who, when he realized there were too shocked to put up a fight, toyed with them for a bit, jeering and laughing as it herded them down an alleyway before falling upon Mara with it's blade. Simon looked on, paralyzed in horror and unable to act, as she was butchered before his eyes. A guardsman noticed the incident before the goblin could turn its attentions on Simon and dispatched the beast, but Mara was already gone, and Simon later learned that his mother had perished when their house was set ablaze. Everyone said that Sandpoint was fortunate, that a group of heroes had prevented the raid from being far worse than it could have been, but Simon felt as if he had lost his entire world.

He fell into a deep depression after that, pushing away his dearest friends and quickly caving to whatever demands the Sczarni made of him. He found his faith slipping. He had lived his whole life believing that whatever might come, ultimately the world was a place of unrivaled beauty, and the decent and righteous would reap its rewards. The truth was, though, this had happened. This sort of tragedy was a part of the world, and it was not beautiful. He left the clergy against his friend Ameiko's objections, and then he began studying other faiths, trying to find one that made sense, and for a time found himself tempted by dark and dangerous cults.

One day, as he was walking outside of the city, he saw a dead stag. It looked to have taken an arrow in the side and expired later, and had begun to rot. Scavenger had been picking at it, and it was every bit as gruesome as he new the world to be. And then he saw a vibrant blue butterfly touch down on one of its antlers. It made for a strange juxtaposition, to be sure, but it got him thinking. Yes, there was death and loss in the world, but that did not mean it was absent of beauty. He pondered this over the next month, and in the end, decided that there was still good to be found in the world. He even began to notice good arise from misery. Soon, rich, fertile grass began to spring from the spot where the stag had decomposed. For the first time he was able to appreciate the craftsmanship in the house that has replaced his own after it burned down. He decided he would accept the world, and understand it in its entirety. He decided also, that Shelyn's idyllic worldview was to skewed, too naive, for him to achieve this. And so it was that he found himself converting to worship of Desna.

He began to recognize cycles in the natural world, and learned to accept the bad with the good. His art began to take a slightly more somber turn as he attempted to include both of these elements in his songs. He began to sing about loss, but there was redemption and hope sometimes as well - they were hardly the self-pitying melodramas he had been crafting a year before.

Haunted by his inability to act as his dear Mara was slaughtered, he also began learning how to fight, serving in Sandpoints town guard as well as in the temple. He found he preferred to work outside of town, keeping threats from the wilderness in check. It let him see a bit of the world outside of the town, and he began to realize how sheltered he had been as a youth. His old restlessness began to return, and this time, it was more difficult to ignore. Today, Simon looks around town and he no longer sees people the way he once did, and he realizes he isn't the man he once was. Old friendships have cooled, old ties have been cut, and he is beginning to wonder if it might not be time to embrace his old wanderlust and explore the world beyond the borders of Sandpoint, or even Varisia.