Bio

John Calder was born in a busy southern merchant port, the son of a powerful human shipwright named Horace Calder and his half-elf mistress, Marie. Although the stigma against half-breeds was too strong for John’s father to ever admit publicly about his affair with a half-elf, he kept John’s birth mother around as a housekeeper and servant, allowing John to grow up alongside both of his parents. Being only a quarter elven meant that John was human in nearly every way; he aged as fast as a normal human, had none of the elven heightened senses and abilities or their frailties. Only those who knew his heritage or had spent a significant amount of time around elves were able to guess at his mixed parentage.

When John was born his father was seen as a pillar of strength and power in the community, and was a model father. But Horace had become a father at a late age and during John’s early childhood the early signs of senility began to set in. Over the years John’s father lost more and more of his grasp on reality, but refused to accept that his mind was going and thus refused to loosen his hold over his business empire. By the time John had reached his early twenties his senile father had driven the business into the ground and had alienated every friend and ally he had made over the years. The bitterness at not being able to hold on to even his own mind had turned his once proud father into a crazed old man.

But throughout all of this John watched his half-elven mother remain un-changed. Her longer life span due to her elf blood seemed to protect her from the horrible fate that befell John’s thoroughly human father. Seeing the dichotomy between the two led to John developing an all-encompassing fear of ageing.

After his father’s death John began to spend all of his time at a local religious library, where he studied under the knowledgeable but eccentric religious scholar Nevis Farrier. Nevis thought that John was just tremendously interested in religious history for pure knowledge’s sake, as he was, and it never occurred to him what John’s motives may be. For John was searching through the history of the world for an ultimate prize… a way to conquer time itself and find the secret of immortality.

In his studies John discovered some ancient writings about a deity named Huatl who had been worshipped by a primitive people who had long since been wiped out. The writings about Huatl claimed that he was capable of granting John his every wish: Huatl had been worshipped as a god of time, of ageing and of death. It was said in the literature that the priests of this long forgotten god became exempt from the curse of ageing, and achieved true immortality. Finally seeing what he would have to do, John set out into the world.

For a few years John wandered the known world, searching for any remnants he could find of the worship of Huatl. He visited the places where the primitives had lived, spoke with those he suspected were descended from them, and searched for artifacts in the old sites of worship. But Huatl had been a minor member of an obscure and already long dead pantheon, so John was able to find very little that remained. Until he stumbled upon an ancient tomb…

Buried in a thick, old forest, John managed to find a burial site that matched the description of the ancient religion. And inside a buried coffin he found what he had been looking for: an ancient religious artifact, clutched in the bony claws of a long-dead priest of Huatl. Being unschooled in the study of magic to be able to determine the artifact’s true power, John didn’t quite know what to do with it, but finding it awakened something in him. A connection was formed between John and a forgotten godly force.

From then on John would dedicate himself to spreading the word and worship of Huatl, having declared himself the first and only Priest of the New Church of Huatl. His magical powers would increase, as would his mysterious connection to the force of time itself. John’s mission became to travel the world, achieving worshippers and glory for his god, in the hopes that when Huatl was resurrected to full strength he would bless his devoted high priest by rendering him immortal, and thus finally safe.

Recently John was contacted by an ally, a dwarven archaeologist named Thorgur Garanak, who in his research had uncovered another potential site where the old worshippers of Huatl had migrated, and where John might be able to find more relics for his new god…