Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

-First Name- Weldreth
-Last Name- Blackmere
-Race- Chondathan
-Age- Early forties
-Height- Tall, although nothing out of the ordinary
-Weight- Athletic build, he cuts a trim figure
-Eyes- Cyan
-Hair- Salt-and-pepper hair worn short
-Facial Hair Style- Well-kept light stubble
A paladin of Torm in the service of Flars Morn of Daggerdale, Weldreth became the witness of his liege's brutal execution at the hands of Zhentarim hireswords at the peak of northern aggression against the Dales circa 1330 DR. Finding new purpose in the face of Flars' surviving son Randal, he made a pledge to remove the Zhent taint from the land and help the rightful heir to the throne wrest the title from the pretender Malyk. The paladin would soon grow into one of the most prominent anti-Zhentarim proponents in the region, thwarting the Network's machinations in the Dagger Falls through the power of his oratory while Randal and his company of two hundred freedom fighters harassed their forces with guile and steel.

As the public face of the resistance movement in the occuppied Daggerdale, Weldreth had come to accept the frequent attempts on his life as an inevitability. Not putting it past the iniquitous agents of the Zhentarim to target his loved ones to leverage his compliance either, the paladin made arrangements for the transportation of his family to the Abbey of the Just Hammer in Tasseldale. He entrusted his lieutenants with the details of the assignment as the events unfolding in the Falls commanded his undivided attention. A trust misplaced as the starving, underpaid rebels assigned to protect his wife and two sons ended up strangling them over a plate of stale beans. The news were delivered to the unfortunate husband by an innocent bystander who watched the crime take place in broad daylight along the Moonsea Ride.

Outraged, the paladin beseeched his liege's permission to track down the brigands and bring them to justice. Begrudgingly, Randal forbade him to seek vengeance claiming that his services would be indispensable in the upcoming war effort. Filled with contempt towards the ingrates who murdered his family over food scraps and his lord who so callously chose to stay his hand, Weldreth deserted the camp like a thief in the night. Determined to repay this perfidy in kind, he rode to Castle Daggerdale where he prostrated himself before the sycophant Malyk before serving up his liege and comrades to him in a silver platter. Surprised albeit pleased, Malyk paid the traitor a handsome sum for the information before kicking him out of the keep like a whipped dog, accompanied by the jeers of his guards.

It wasn't long before Weldreth's conscience caught up with him but it was already too late. He rode back to camp overnight, prepared to confess his treason and subject himself to the lord's justice only to find out that Malyk had him beat. Like vultures, the Zhentilar were already picking the remains of his dead comrades for valuables; so absorbed were they by their grisly task that they didn't pay him any mind as he scoured the battlefield in search for Randal's remains. The young man had apparently managed to escape the carnage but that was a small solace for the grief-stricken paladin. Unable to shoulder the consequences of his betrayal for the rest of his life, Weldreth flung himself from a ravine in the Dagger Hills, yearning for the pain to stop.

But fate played the paladin a cruel trick. The shallow fall snapped his neck, failing to kill him outright and instead left him in a paralyzed state. Seeing a protracted death full of agony awaiting him, Weldreth uttered a silent prayer to Torm begging the deity to deliver this faithful servant from such wretched a fate. The man remembers a rending chill permeating every fibre of his being before passing out cold that night. Only to awaken the following morning, with his neck injury and mobility completely restored. He has since chalked this miracle up as Torm offering him a chance at redemption... He was wrong.
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-Base Class & Proposed Development- Fighter (ex-paladin)/BG/GT/GFK
-Deity- Bane (Weldreth thinks he's still championing the cause of Torm)
-General Health- Impeccable thanks to the blessings of his dark patron

• Weldreth is a man teetering on the line between delusion and evil. He has reconciled to himself that hard decisions and regrettable actions are necessary in the service of Torm. He constructs elaborate rationalizations to justify every non-good act, believing his actions to be just and pure.
• So far his patron has been content with leaving Weldreth live with his hallucination, seeing the long-term benefit in an unwitting pawn able to worm its way through the ranks of the righteous. But he might soon wish to exact his due payment for the benefaction by revealing his true identity to Weldreth, an act that would be almost sure to shatter the man's already deteriorating sanity.
• Weldreth views his transition from paladin to blackguard as a state of purgatory whereby he will be cleansed of his sins if he uses his newfound powers to further add to Torm's lustre and power. Feeding this illusion, Bane subtly guides him to commit vile acts that serve his own ends and steer the man ever farther from redemption.
• He observes a very twisted shade of his paladin ethos drawn from his own code of ennoblement, Bane's and Torm's dogmas. (Will add shortly, once I've got it figured out)
• His paladin bestowments have undergone severe defacement. Initially, Weldreth reforged Torm's symbol on the armor's spaulders. The end result was an upright gauntlet sitting within a shield streaked with red; a hybrid symbol between Torm's own and Bane's pre-ToT emblem. Later, he began ascribing fiendish features to the two pegasi engraved on the plackart until they began resembling Nightmare steeds. Confounded by his own twisted creations, Weldreth eventually chose to paint his armor black.
• Weldreth breaks out in a cold sweat whenever he enters a temple or consecrated ground devoted to a goodly deity. He has yet to divine the cause of his aversion but odds are his attempts at masking it will improve the more powerful he becomes.