As a young woman, Celeste was training to become a healer, doing small jobs at a house of healing while she studied medicine. One of those small jobs was to attend to a retired adventurer named Mandon Moore, and make sure that he was as comfortable as possible in what were the final years of his life. As Celeste attended to his needs, she attempted to form a bond with the man, since she noticed that he never seemed to get much in the way of visitors, and she did not want him to be alone at the end of his life. It took no small amount of persistence from her to get him to do so, as he only opened up after weeks of her working towards that goal.
When he finally did open up, he spent hours telling her about the adventures that he and his comrades went on. The lands they explored, the monsters and villains that they slew, the treasures they won, and the lives that they saved. He recounted that it all seemed nice in the moment, but it didn’t change the fact that there was always someone or something new that had to be slain, more innocents that were endangered and killed by the schemes of the wicked, and Golarion always seemed to be in turmoil.
Internally, Celeste was shaken by this man’s words, that Golarion was always in some sort of danger, despite all of the heroism from brave heroes like the man she was speaking to. But externally, she simply asked the old man if he wished he knew this earlier so he could have spent his life differently. The old man laughed and said that he had come across this realization decades ago, something that came across as a great surprise to her.
The old man explained that when he had this epiphany, he originally despaired, for he did not know of anyone he could tell it to without causing them to experience similar despair. Until he met a priest of Groetus, who told him that the world was indeed doomed, as eventually every living soul on the Material Plane would perish and Groetus would eventually destroy the empty Material Plane so that its’ dust could be used to form a new reality. The priest actually encouraged the adventurer to continue his work, saying that just because Golarion was destined to end, it didn’t mean that it should be allowed to become a horrible place.
Mandon told Celeste that surprisingly, that was exactly what he needed to hear, that even if the world was doomed to end sooner or later, it was still worth protecting. He told Celeste that he continued to work as an adventurer for decades, but never told any of his comrades that he owed his renewed desire to explore to a follower of Groetus. Celeste asked why he would tell her all of this. Mandon chuckled and told her that she wanted to know so badly, asking him day after day, but also because he thought that she would understand where he was coming from, being someone who worked to ensure that Mandon would spend his final days in peace and comfort.
And Mandon was right. Celeste continued to learn about Groetus from Mandon while taking care of him and when he died, he bequeathed to Celeste some old adventuring gear he had and a holy symbol of Groetus, the only possessions from his adventuring career that he hadn’t sold away by that point. With her charge dead, Celeste left the house of healing and went out into the world, seeking to grow closer with Groetus as she followed in Mandon’s footsteps, becoming a protector of beautiful, doomed Golarion.
