Uriel Leveton; "Blade-Bearer"'s page

Nearly head and shoulders taller than the average human, everything about Uriel has just a hint of being something more than mortal. His eyes are a brilliant gold and reflect the light like a cat's might, while his pale skin has a metallic texture. His hands, much like the rest of his body, lack any scars or callouses from his years of combat training. His long wavy hair is an unnaturally vibrant shade of scarlet, and sometimes seems to churn with the colors of flame. His shadow is cast with the presence of five feathered wings despite him lacking any such feature. His entire body is well-muscled to the point where he almost looks to be a statue chiseled of out of marble. His voice seems to carry even with a whisper, and despite speaking out loud it always seems as if you hear him from within your head. His left arm bears a birthmark shaped like a sword wrapped in a pair of wings, and earned him his nickname of 'Blade-Bearer' as well as being a sign of him having been marked by the favor of his god.

Uriel always travels in armor, his breastplate and chainmail worn nearly constantly. Over it he wears a red cloth tabard with the same sigil as his birthmark inscribed in black on the chest. The tabard hangs open in the front and wraps around the backs of his legs with a pale pink and maroon patterned band at the bottom near his knees; the edges and details of the tabard, while becoming tattered in places, are detailed with fine silver threading. On his left shoulder Uriel wears a heavy steel pauldron made of overlapping plates, strapped across his chest and around his back. Both forearms are covered in heavy steel gauntlets and he wears a matching set of greaves on his legs. His pants are a heavy dark grey fabric made for combat and sustained use. At his waist he wears a black leather belt studded with silver, which carries pouches full of small things such as coinage. In addition, he wears the scabbard for his massive bastard sword. The weapon is finely made but not flashy, with a black leather grip and a wide crossguard.

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Uriel is a young man who has been raised since birth to believe he was destined for greatness. While kind and sympathetic to the plights of others, he is also quite stubborn and quick to anger; both of which are traits he supposedly inherited from his father. The virtues and values of his faith are effectively his life, and as such he takes a personal affront to them being violated and will often seek to rectify it on his own. While he's capable of seeing the world in shades of grey, he often has trouble knowing where to draw lines or let things go, and so he has a penchant for both holding grudges and taking hard moral stances. Despite all this, Uriel seeks to be a force for good in all things he does, and understands that people may do the wrong things for the right reasons. He lives to help others and do right by the world, and so does everything in his power to do so. Uriel's other driving force is his love of battle, another trait of his father's. Having been trained as a warrior of his faith since he was old enough to hold a waster, he finds the raw and brutal nature of combat to be utterly exhilarating. While he doesn't find pleasure in taking a life, he loves the rush of battle and the simplicity of it compared to intricate political plots or backroom deals.

Born in Magnimar, Uriel was raised within a devout cult of Ragathiel. While clearly of celestial heritage, the higher ups of the cult believed it was more than that; Uriel was raised to believe he was the direct scion of Ragathiel himself. His mother claimed that she was visited by their god to give life to a man who would one day save the world, and that he was born of that one-time union. While he has no idea if this story holds even a kernel of truth, Uriel has never known anything else. No one claims to have ever met a man who might have been his father and his mother was never married. Moreover, he seems to have been marked by some higher power from the moment of his birth. He sports a birthmark on his left shoulder in the shape of Ragathiel's holy symbol that is remarkably detailed, and his mother claims to know of no one in their family who was ever connected with another celestial being. In addition, he seems almost supernaturally gifted as if fate has conspired for him to have a greater life than a simple worshiper of an empyreal lord. From the time he was old enough to swing a blade he was trained in the arts of combat by the more martially inclined members of their order, and quickly began to excel. He became deadly in the use of his father's own signature weapon, the bastard sword, and specialized quite extensively in its use. Around this point in his life, he began to have his dreams.

Uriel dreamed of a massive fortress floating amongst the hills and clouds of what he could only imagine was Heaven, the massive structure fortified by thousands upon thousands of angels. While he could never clearly see the figure who hovered beyond the ramparts, he knew it was his father; the flowing red hair and five massive flaming wings that clearly sprouted from his back were obvious signs. He always awoke before he could reach the fortress, but he eventually began to feel the trickling of divine power. He could feel the divine might flow through him when he sparred, all the stronger because of his direct connection to his father. While incapable of actually mastering more powerful magical concepts, he showed an innate aptitude for some highly advanced spells when the clerics began to teach him more about wielding his magic. His father's power gifted him with the ability to harness divine rage and empower himself physically, as opposed to more subtle or removed magical abilities. Still, he harnessed great potential and in time began to believe more strongly that he was the son of the Angel of Vengeance. After his basic combat training was deemed complete, Uriel was gifted with a masterfully crafted blade of cold iron and silver, meant to be useful to him when he some day fought against the legions of Hell and the Abyss.

However, several months ago, Uriel's dreams began to change. Instead, he now saw a town near the coast, with a dark cloud descending upon it from all sides. As the city was enveloped by the darkness, he could see a strange seven-pointed star rise from the ground until he covered not only the city, but the entirety of Varisia and soon after much of the Inner Sea. He spent months researching the source of the sigil with no luck, and no leads as to what this darkness might be. When he finally learned of the Swallowtail Festival in Sandpoint, he was struck with what he believed was divine insight; this was the city of his dreams. While he still knew not what evil was lurking ready to attack the small coastal town, he knew he was meant to stop it. He set out across Varisia to arrive a few days beforehand, hoping to stop such evil before it began.