Valentinian's page

About Valentinian

Valentinian Diomedes is the bastard offspring of an Ulfen Guard warrior & a Taldan whore. While this is certainly not a unique set of birth circumstances for a boy-child from Oppara, matters were greatly complicated by the fact that Valentinian’s father’s jealous and noble-born Ulfen wife learned of her spouse’s visits to the house of ill repute where Valentinian’s mother worked.
In a fit of rage over the indignity of it all, Valentinian’s step-mother assaulted her husband with all the fervor of the greatest berserkers from the skald’s tales. At first amused, Valentinian’s father quickly learned that he was fighting for his life when his wife produced an enchanted Ulfen dagger from her gown. Unfortunately for him, he lost that fight as an unlucky swipe laid open his carotid artery, further ripping open his neck with a blast of eldritch fire. He bled to death almost instantly. The sight of all this spilled blood shocked his wife out of her anger, and filled her with bitter regret.
Sadly for Valentinian and his mother, the Ulfen noblewoman quickly decided that the prostitute was to blame for everything, and that her and her misbegotten offspring (i.e. Valentinian) most certainly should be killed. As a result of this hateful grudge, Valentinian spent the first 10 years of his childhood moving constantly around Taldor with his mother, avoiding the killers and assassins sent to end their lives. During this nomadic period, Valentinian began to idealize the glorious past of Taldor, reading whatever he could get his hands on about the Armies of Exploration.
At this time he came into possession of a very old history book with the title Taldor is the Light. He cannot remember how he acquired it. The book contained a list of fallen heroes from the 3rd Army of Exploration, and tales of their exploits. Often Valentinian would read some of the names before bed, which unfailingly caused him to have the most vivid dreams about ancient Taldan heroes.
On his 11th birthday tragedy again found him. Upon returning from his daily market trip to purchase bread, with bread in one hand and Taldor is the Light in the other, he found his mother being assaulted by a bizarre-appearing red bug-head creature with a frightening jagged sword. In a surreal moment forever burned upon his memory, he dropped the bread loaf so that he could clutch Taldor is the Light firmly with both hands. Without knowing why he did it, he began to call out the names of the fallen heroes from the book. Soon the bug-head creature was surrounded by a half-dozen ghost-like forms, each with the appearance of a Taldan warrior of old. As these incorporeal beings lashed out at the red mantis, he plunged his sawtoothed blade through Valentinian’s mother’s heart in a dying fit of effort.
Before he could even begin to weep, the ghostly figures strode purposefully toward Valentinian, each intently whispering “Return to us our glory!” before disappearing into the book. After the final figure entered Taldor is the Light, there was a brilliant flash, and the book was gone. From that point forward, whenever Valentinian felt the intensity of combat overcome him, spirits appeared to lash out at his enemies. Also, his indifferent health greatly improved to a strange newfound vitality.
Valentinian has made every attempt to train himself as a classic Taldan knight, but has failed (in his mind) because of the spirits that haunt him.
Valentinian feels himself cursed, rather than blessed. His sleep is disturbed by dreams filled with endless scenes of the fighting glory of the Taldan Phalanx and the countless deeds of valor performed by Taldan heroes. His waking hours are interrupted by the whispers of spirits that want to see Taldor return to her old glory. While Valentinian shares that goal to a certain extent, he’d rather succeed without the help of supernatural forces, even if such forces are the spirits of fallen Taldan heroes.
Valentinian has joined the Pathfinder Society to find some way to free himself from the ancient spirits that want to make him a champion.