BACKSOTRY HO

The tale of Drimina Eckicag begins on a summer morning in the fifth year of our lord and savior, Hiar. On that day in a little village on the border of Aryia, a soldier fearfully watched as his wife screamed with all of the might a red dragon. He knew that the village elder had delivered thousands of births in her time but there was still that spark of fear that this could be the time when she failed in her duties. His worries were unfounded though but naught five minutes later when he held a little bundle of joy in his scarred arms. Drimina. Named after her Great Aunt who had supposedly wrestled a pit lord into it's early grave though some say it was actually a goat, Drimina grew to be light of his life alongside his wife. It was in his humble opinion that he couldn't be happier but he was proved wrong again when two years later, his wife once again gave birth to a young lad of blonde hair and blue eyes. Feath.

The soldier watched with a smile on his lips as years seemingly passed in the space of days, his children sprouting up like weeds in the village of Nuln. His mind constantly worried during those days though when he heard word of villages burnt to the ground by bandits and the dead raised from the ground by infernalists but that could never happen to Nuln. It couldn't! So, time passed and his two little children grew up into fine young teenagers. At the age of 13, he could already see Drimina taking his place on the village watch as she constantly strived to be the best at anything he threw at her. Weight training with logs? Done. Sword drills with his greatsword? Done. Disciplne training? Failed horribly as she instead walloped Feath with her wooden practice sword at the first opportunity. Feath. He seemed more and more like a minature shadow of Driminia everyday as he tried to show his big sister that he was just as good at her at everything, if not better. This seemed to devolve into arguing constantly and arguing turned into full fights as the siblings showed their martial might by walloping eachother. Maybe it was for the best, god knows that he had a good sibling rivalry with his brother at their age. Eh, he could talk to them both later about what it meant to be family and that it didn't mean that they should shank eachother. Unfortantely, he never got that chance.

On the tenth day in the sixth month in the eighteenth year of our lord and savior Hiar, she came to Nuln. A paladin of Hiar who was reportedly sent here to go search for the ruins of some ancient evil in the forests of Nuln, he thought she was up to no good. He was never the religious sort but he bided her presence as she prayed at their shrine to Hiar and he even escorted her out to the forest's edge when she went off on her "adventure". When she came back bloodied and screaming for the militia to rouse themselves for battle in the middle of the night, he even followed her orders. He had dealt with bandits in his time and had slew more than his fair share of wolves but he was not prepared for the shadowspawn. They were unnaturally strong. They were unnaturally fast. They were everywhere and he was not. I suppose that everyone has to die sometime and that on the tenth day in the sixth month in the eighteenth year of our lord and savior Hiar, it was the soldier's time.

They were all dead. A weak child might have cried in the burning embers of her home and more wroth one might have charged out into the slaughter herself, dieing to the long dark claws of the Shadowspawn but Drimina was not either of those things. Instead of crying or running as the flames engulfed her home or the Shadowspawn butchered her uncle in the next room, she took her little brother over to the window. Breaking the window out with her elbow, she carefully let her younger brother down before climbing out herself with her only thought being the protection of Feath. It was a small miracle that no Shadowspawn saw them or maybe they were too busy slaughtering closer targets but Drimina managed to take Feath away from Nuln and to the forest's edge. He could survive without her. He was a strong kid and he knew the forest like the back of his hand from the days when they would play in the trees, this she knew. Drimina left Feath on the forest's edge with instructions to run to the nearest city before going back into the slaughter. She couldn't run without finding her dad. Her dad would know what to do. He was stronger than a ox and had a sword that could cleave a log in a single blow. He would protect her and together, they would escape and find Feath before leaving for the city. That is when she saw his corpse.

Drimina had always wanted to become a guardsmen in their town's militia, maybe even a soldier in the king's army. She had the strength for it and seemed to be naturally apt with her father's sword when he allowed her to train with it. In a different life, she might have gone on to live a normal and happy life in that village. Growing old with her husband while occasionally putting down some uppity bandit with a sword in her hands. In this life however, she took that sword and fought the Shadowspawn that swarmed her village. Even as Feath decided that running away was a coward's thing to do and ran back to try and help her. Even as she was forced to ferry him to the Town Square where the Militia was making their Last Stand for any hope of survival. Even as she took wound after wound and her village burnt down to the ground around her, she fought on.

Some say that she was being driven by the gods in her fight, other says that she was just really fucking pissed. Whatever the answer may be, Drimina fought on with the surviving Militia and the Paladin of Hiar. She couldn't hope to match the Paladin's skill or the Militia's experience but she made up for it in strength as she helped them push back wave after wave of Shadowspawn in the Town Center. The sun eventually rose though, as it is apt to do and the Shadowspawn retreated back to whence they came.

There were few survivors of the attack with of the militia, only seven of the original thirty being left alive. The villagers were even worse off with over a hundred of their number having been slaughtered in the attack, Drimina's mother among their numbers. They had no where to go and after the fight, the village of Nuln was no more with only refugees being left in it's place. Among these numbers, Drimina had no guardian and the Paladin of Hiar felt responsible for the attack. After observing Drimina's aptitude for the sword, she decided to take her back to the Hiaronia where she could hopefully become a Paladin like herself. Feath was too young for training but there was hope that he could eventually become one himself in two years time. So it went.

Time passed as it is apt to do and Drimina found herself hard at study in the mornings over theology and military strategy. During her evenings, she would find herself beaing beaten raw every night as their training was seemingly pounded into her head, one training sword strike at a time. She would occasionaly visit Feath who had start worship some heathen god in his spare time and joined Hiaronia's City Watch to provide for himself. Unfortunately, they eventually started to drift apart due to what happened at Nuln and his new religious choices but they still exchanged letters every other week or so. Drimina continued to train at Hiaronia and soon became a fully-fledged Paladin at age 20 under her own mentor, Nyressa, the Paladin who started it all in Nuln so long ago. Nyressa seemed feel some form of shame over what happened at Nuln though Drimina felt no bitterness towards her and even started to befriend her with time. It had been one year since she became a actual Paladin when Drimina recieved a letter in the mail.

Communications with her brother had become sporadic at best when he had become a Caravan Guard but it had been even some time for that. The letter was strange and orginated from Ri'Dina, he spoke of strange things like orcs and kobolds despite assurances that it had been handled. Drimina was not conviced. She was already preparing for her time of questing as was tradition in the Covenant of Hiaronia but this pushed the date in her mind forward. Saying farewells to all of the friends she had made in Hiaronia over the years, she officially became a Knight-Errant in the name of the Church of Hiar. Setting out to find the Shards of the Sword of Hiar and the Chunks of Gru'ul's Axe as so many had done before her, she decided to make her first stop in her quest Ri'Dina. Arriving at Ri'Dina after one incident involving a snarky goblin and a runaway carriage, Drimina soon began the real journey.