Character ·
Murdock Shaw
A discharged captain of the Ellerian army, sworn to Malyr under the Oath of Devotion, and an illegitimate son of the king of Malinar. He founded the New Church of Malyr in Dolonde.
- Origin
- Elleria. Captain, Ellerian Army, recently discharged
- Class
- Oath of Devotion Paladin of Malyr
- Blood
- Illegitimate son of King Ramsey of Malinar; half-brother to Crown Prince Rami
- Status
- Departed at Dolonde. Founder of the New Church of Malyr
Murdock Shaw was a captain of the Ellerian army, recently discharged, and peacetime did not suit him.
He was in the city watch office in Elleris when the evening produced a runaway princess on a staircase and a Malinari squad leaning over a barkeep. He handled both. He did not go back to the watch.
He is sworn to the Oath of Devotion: honesty, courage, compassion, honour, duty. It is not a complicated list. By the time the Veil Piercers reached Malinar, the Paladin Order had abandoned every item on it while wearing the same symbol.
Malyr is God of Battle and Might. He is also God of Justice and Defense, and the Church ruling Malinar had spent twenty years editing the second half out.
Murdock worked this out slowly, and then all at once. Banished mid-fight from a Malinari street, he found himself looking directly at his god, and in that moment he was able to separate Malyr from the tyrant the Order had built in his name.
Then the Church launched its coup.
In the royal keep, with the fighting already lost, Murdock learned that the king dying on the floor was his father, that Crown Prince Rami was his half-brother, and that the hostage the Order had been holding as leverage on both of them was his sister Isabelle. All three of King Ramsey's illegitimate children were siblings of one another.
He was too late for his father. He was not too late for Rami.
Then Malyr's avatar came down on the capital and burned it.
Murdock went south with the others, through the vampiric conspiracy beneath Dolonde and up the mountain Althea raised out of the ground. He pinned Magnus Rex in place with his hands while the weapons came online.
When the survivors fled the city, he stayed. He had gathered the first followers of a New Church of Malyr, founded on the belief that strength exists in service to justice rather than conquest.
He is in Dolonde, building it.
