#saint #cdm

source: Draw Steel Heroes Book

Domains: Love, Protection

Gaed the Confessor, son of Malgen, son of Germoc, was the abbot of a small monastery dedicated to Saint Anthony— Shield of the North—in eastern Aendrim during the rule of the tyrant Baron Kaveran. Kaveran was a secret censor of the church of Saint Pallad, winning the baronial throne though a combination of treachery and good strategic battle principles.

Once on the throne, he threw off the black cloth covering the device on his shield, revealing himself to be a servant of Pallas, Saint of Nikros.

Kaveran sought to consolidate his rule by extinguishing the church of Saint Anthony, Shield of the North specifically, and worship of Adûn generally. In this, he almost succeeded. Gaed’s monastery was small, his province obscure. But as he refused to renounce his faith, his monastery attracted more and more refugees, making it harder and harder for Kaveran to deal with him without causing a revolt.

Kaveran abducted Gaed, his knights dragging the abbot out of his monastery in the middle of the night, and tortured him for seven days, hoping to break his faith and force him to convert to Saint Pallad. Gaed neither renounced his faith nor called out for aid.

Kaveran was no fool, and knew killing Gaed would make a martyr of him, and so attacked the abbot’s flock. Hoping—by putting their homes to the fire—to pressure Gaed into recanting his faith. Kaveran barred several families in a tavern, set fire to it, and brought Gaed to witness the horror.

But Kaveran had not thought to shackle Gaed, and the abbot countered by lifting the bar on the burning building and walking into the tavern in full view of hundreds of his followers. He spoke Saint Anthony’s words as he did so, but it was Adûn who clothed him in a shimmering blue light.

It was Gaed, son of Malgen, son of Germoc, who entered the tavern—it was Saint Gaed the Confessor who emerged, unscathed, leading the people inside to safety. In that moment the people and many of Kaveran’s own followers turned on the cruel Baron, dragging him off his horse and spitting his body with kitchen knives and pitchforks.

Gaed teaches the virtue of being true to one’s principles even—especially—when doing so is the most difficult thing in the world. The title “confessor” is granted to those who persisted in their faith in public, even when doing so was dangerous or deadly.

Player Notes

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