When Michael was 7, his mother passed away. Michael was not old enough to understand what was happening, so when he asked his dad where his mom was, his dad said that she went to a wonderful place in the sky called "Celestia".
Michael still didn't know what to think, so he went to the library and checked out a big book on Celestia. There were lots of big words and strange terms that he didn't understand, but he got the gist of it. His mother was on another plane where powerful and beautiful warriors of Good called "angels" would protect her forever. Michael swore to himself that one day, he too would become an angel and go to Celestia so he could protect everyone there.
As Michael got older, he was exposed to more death, and he began to understand the truth behind life and death. Still, Michael had great respect for the dead, and as he trained as a paladin he often said a prayer asking for Iomedae to watch over his mother and the souls of the fallen, wherever they may rest.
Since Michael lived in Ustalav, he bore witness to a great number of troubling things, and that only instilled in him a greater passion for justice. Michael was particularly disgusted by the undead. The idea of taking someone's remains and transforming them into a servant of evil against the deceased's will made Michael sick.
Michael fostered this hatred, and it grew and shifted and twisted inside him, until it became something more, something closer to racism. Everytime Michael saw one of those disgusting creatures, he had to fight back vomit, and his fists clenched involuntarily as his entire body shook with anger. How could someone do this to people?
Each one of those skeletons was probably someone's own mother or father or brother or sister at some point. And rather than letting them rest in peace, the necromancers simply raised them to serve evil desires for eternity.
Michael realized there was no guarantee that any given skeleton he passed on the street wasn't his own mother at some point. After all, the remains of the dead were nothing more than ingredients for the necromancer's creations to them. Who was to stop the Whispering Tyrant from simply going around and digging up corpses and reanimating them? Nothing, that's what. The idea made Michael sick with rage.
Finally, Michael snapped, and charged at a skeletal guard on the street with his longsword. The undead creature struck him down with its vicious claw attacks and left him for dead as he bled on the sidewalk. Michael's consciousness slowly left his body.
When he awoke, he was in the temple of Iomedae, wrapped in bandages and feeling pain, but his body was no longer in danger of expiration. There was an odd-looking human there. The human introduced himself as Professor Lorrimor, and asked Michael a whole bunch of questions. How had a child survived an encounter with a skeleton? Did he believe that his life was a gift from Iomedae Herself? What kinds of paladin training did he have and did it help him in any way? Michael answered all of his questions to the best of his ability.
Michael then looked out of the window and muttered, "It doesn't matter why I survived. I wasn't successful. That skeleton is still there. All of them are still there. This entire city is just one big cycle of life and undeath, and nothing will break it."
He was quiet for a moment, and then whispered, "I wish I could save them. I wish I could save them all, and lay the dead to rest."
The Professor was silent for a moment, before speaking up. "If you wish to cleanse the world of undeath, you must take your training as a paladin more seriously. You must study, and learn your foe. You cannot just fight him blind, you must learn what undeath is and how creatures that walk against their will behave. The more you know, the stronger you are. I will help you. I am no fan of these creatures myself, but I have researched them extensively."
For the next seven years, Michael and the Professor corresponded. The Professor sent him documents and papers to read, and the pair discussed their recent interactions with undead, as well as some more personal things such as work and training and friends. Michael grew to really care for the Professor as his teacher, while he learned quite a bit about skeletons and zombies, wraiths and wights, vampires and dhampir. He even learned of the dark secrets of the lich. The very idea that the Whispering Tyrant voluntarily imprisoned his soul within a corpse simply to gain eternal life made Michael's hatred for the man grow that much more extreme.
However, one day the Professor's letters stopped coming. After a few months, Michael grew worried, and decided to pay the old man a visit. When he discovered the Professor had passed away, he was saddened, but resolved to never allow the professor's remains to be desecrated or possessed. He wanted to purify the corpse so the Professor could rest in peace for eternity. It was the least he could do for the old man.
