Aelion Qualanthri

A half-elf paladin of the Oath of Devotion: a wandering knight, a singer and musician, and a man with a real fondness for drink. He calls himself a vessel of Torm, reads Draconic, and distrusts dragons because of something that happened to him long ago.

The faith he carries

Torm's faith rests on two tenets: Loyalty and Duty. Loyalty is lived as motivation, and its keepers, the acolytes (priests and clerics), ask themselves am I being true? Duty is lived as volition, and its keepers, the initiates (blades and paladins), ask is what I am doing right? The paladins are called Shields of Torm and wear a blue cloak and gambeson. A dark blue cloak marks a Wayfarer: a Shield whose nature does not suit an established order, who wanders the land as an itinerant vessel spreading Torm's word. Aelion is a Wayfarer, and he is tied to the order called The Unbowed Sky.

What we know about the man

• He knows abandonment from the inside. He lived for a time with his mother's family, and he recognises it in other people at once, as he did in Mother Vee.
• He and La Maestra have travelled together for about ten months. They use hand signals they worked out on the road, mostly for scouting a fight, and that friendship is the spine of the party: he keeps her out of the dark, and she keeps him from dying.
• He promises things before he knows how to deliver them. "You're with a paladin. This is what we do."
• He dropped to zero hit points in three sessions running. He has vowed to go back to the mine and consecrate its dead.

In the story so far

He saved Nora from possession with the light of Torm, when the town would have killed her. He led the miners out of the mine. His heavy maul turned out to be a Holy Avenger, and he attuned to it in the Underdark. When the party came out of the mountain above town, he was the one who said "Welcome home." In Session 9 he sat with Nora, told her the blanket is a chain, and promised her he would find her daughter. In Session 10 he kept that promise: he brought Mira to her mother, walked her home, and stood guard outside her door until midnight. In Session 11 he held Lavius through his nightmare, swore again that he will not ring the bell, and went down once more in the church before Tüül brought him back. "Torm is the light! I am the flame that guides the way!"