Peredur Anwyl's page

The child of a fallen world with blood that hearkened back to a better one, Peredur had been marked out for a life of either challenge or despair from upbringing alone. Though his family was but one petty kingship amongst patchwork brutal barbarism, their blood was ancient, and parents raised their shining son as if it still flowered in full strength and reign. Such lore and gifts as they had yet managed to hoard, they used in his shaping, in a demanding training to ideals and standards that no longer existed in a dark age of plundering warlords and burning kingdoms. This could only ensure he would look out on the world that was with dissatisfaction, with desire for more than it was now, and instead for what it could have been. In that sense, that in him all the promise of that old blood sang for burning potential was not necessarily a gift, for with the paltry means available to him, it could only mean a reach that would forever exceed his grasp.

With a self assured smile, Peredur himself, quick witted and keen enough to understand the travails and limitations before him, said simple “they only matter if I fail.” There was something in him that could only look to impossible standards, to elegies of once great kingdoms as challenges to be met and promises to be honoured. He was a restless soul in his youth, driven by will that came from within, yet beyond, gathering together a group of companions to ride outward, to seek and claim every hidden or buried remnant of their world’s glorious past as they could find. Ruins were explored, occulted wise men and spirits tracked down, even plundered riches, held by those with an ignorance of their use, were claimed, or as Peredur preferred to say, reclaimed.

And he grew strong, and wise, and powerful. He walked secret paths and learned hidden masteries. His fervor and force of personality drove those around him to rally and swear to similar purpose, uplifted even by his company to better themselves. But still he felt challenges before him, still his will and soul burned. It was not enough to satisfy him, to bring him a sense of peace within his spirit. The world had been ripped apart by the strong after all, was still daily torn to shreds by those who had made themselves mighty. Power alone then, self growth alone then, was meaningless, or it would have made meaning in the world, instead of showing the height of its creation to be slag.

As much from himself whole cloth as works he studied, Peredur built a philosophy to guide himself by. Did his companions bleed for him? Then they deserved to be honoured for what they bled. Could he have risen himself up without his family, his people? Of course not, and so they too, should be able to rise. Even the legends and stories of the old world that was, if that world had not been glorious enough to create a legacy of inspiration, then the fires of his own soul might never have been stoked. His own power, his own glory, was held in obligation to them, long dead though they were. He would take his might and put it into the service of right. And that right did not especially exist in this world meant only that he would have to create it. He was challenged by some as to how that made him different from any other conqueror of the moment, putting their will and ambition on the world. His reply was a simple one, that he was creating something for he himself to serve, and that ambition, if held for all men, as a promise to all their potential, could make one man’s rise as all their own.

These conclusions, these convictions, these quests, they sanctified his soul somehow, gave it radiance and resonance. He came into his own throne, he gathered followers. He traveled into depths of horror simply to reach out his hand and offer a better way, to join him in a better world. He endured hardship and privation in refining himself further to be an example for the world, an inspiration. And where he could not inspire, or persuade, he fought. Against warlords and petty kings, against monsters and foulness that had swept into the world after its collapse. His deeds were a wonder, as was his intent, for there was an underlying methodical rigor to his efforts. Though inspired by one that was, in many ways, he was building a new order, a new world, out of almost nothing, and care and thought needed to be twinned with the staggering aspiration and pride in himself and others that were necessary to believe such a working could be possible at all.

It could not be said that he conquered his world, such things are vast after all. But within its vastness he forged a great society all the same, heralded as the Summer King of a shining nation, a symbol of defiance against terror and despair, a testament to the idea of aspiration. And such forces as preferred his world a dark and wretched thing, its races degraded and brutal, near constantly assailed it. Yet from each war, victory was found, and strength ever heightened. In a city of silver and gold he gathered lore, sponsored learning and innovation, fostered culture and art, encouraged nobility to live as exemplars. He swore to himself this would not be yet another cycle of rise and fall, that he would rise his people to a point of touching eternity.

It made him attentive to such as were his enemies yet, to their motivations, and particularly to the patterns he intuited behind them. There were forces larger than them, larger than his world, that much desired its fallen state, and he could never strike at them while bound to a terrestrial sphere, could not shield his people from them. But that was just one more challenge to face. He had made himself powerful before, and made that power have meaning, purpose. If there was a world beyond his world, then it had power besides, that could be made his own yet, and put into better service yet. Securing his kingdom, he moved beyond it and into a wider reality, plumbing its depths, learning its knowledges, reaching infernal lows and celestials heights, transforming himself in high ritual to make his sanctified spirit manifest in his body. He found as he moved through the multiverse others in peril, in need, hungering, though they might have known it not, for an example to help them not just reach beyond themselves, but succeed in doing so. And in doing so, make their world a better place for having tried.

He learned besides of concepts he found distasteful, of cosmic balances, of gods, even principles of evil enshrined into the fabric of reality itself. He did not despair all the same. This was but a path his entire life had prepared him for. After all, these forces are only inviolate if he fails.

To look to Peredur Anwyl is to see the fierceness of his soul on full display. It blazes in the transfixing power of his gaze, in his proud bearing, in the rich and resonant tones of his voice, in even just the forceful grace of his simplest motion, or the leonine motion of his fuller step and bright, toothy grin. Yet though there is almost a palpable heat haze about him from power and potential barely contained, the sense of it can feel as invigorating as it might claiming, as though all his strength is freely offered to take up. His eyes are a deep and piercing blue, his brown hair worn long and thick to frame noble features of a perfectly sculpted cast. His build is an athletic one, muscled in proportion to a height that is kept from feeling looming by the feel of a presence that draws onlookers within, instead of forbidding them without.

His bright white wings are usually kept folded to his body, tending to favour otherwise well made greatcoats of a brilliant green chased in gold worn open over golden mail, boots and gauntlets similarly coloured, if shod in steel with intricate golden filigree