Cinder

Cinder, The Inevitable Monster
Originally infamous for the massacre of a congregation of nobles that taunted him endlessly over trying to find a burial ground for his late exiled brother, Cinder has been called little that isn't synonymous with "monster." However, the sudden outburst that made him a criminal did not come without a benefit - his cowardice was replaced entirely by courage and the will to take matters into his own claws.

After a few years of fleeing across The Scarred Wasteland and The Viridian Labyrinth, he found shelter in a small clan by the name of "Clan Forsulyn" sitting in The Tangled Wood - apparently, they were plagued by a shade-touched crypt that horrors often crawled out of. In exchange for their support, Cinder opted to give in to his "monstrous" being - and unleashed it on the true monsters below.

He wields a weapon forged by the shade meant to kill The Eleven - the Deicide Gauntlet. Unfortunately for the shade, Cinder's mind has been immune to thought manipulation ever since he snapped. Also unfortunately for the shade, its own power works just fine against other shade-touched horrors.
With an emperor he freed from the control of the shade as his only true companion, he lurks The Forsulyn Mural utterly destroying any shade-touched creature he comes across.

The Beast Inside
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Cinder sits down atop what remains of a shade horror. Something that the Gaolers never intended for the rest of Sornieth to see - a twisted reminder that dragonkind is not perfect, that they too can be monsters.
To everyone else, the only monster worth noting was Cinder himself:

Four crystalline wings of shade, an emperor’s jaw resting atop each shoulder, and a weapon forged to kill The Eleven themselves.

He glances at the last writhing wisps of shade being absorbed by his gauntlet - another enemy of dragonkind dispatched, not merely held in waiting by a prideful warden. Whatever secrets the Icewarden held, the words of his ilk were hollow to Cinder. Gaolers sent to the fledgling clan plagued by the shade-touched crypt hounded the locals first, their camp frozen solid before any of the visitors so much as stepped foot underground.

Cinder already had a massive bounty on his head - 2 million gems, to be exact. He had slipped off to The Tangled Wood to hide, hoping to live out however many days he had left in relative peace. He knew that everyone thought of him as a monster - he just had to find a place where no matter what happened, he wouldn’t hurt anyone else.

The Gaolers sent to “contain” the shade at The Forsulyn Mural did not hesitate to lash out at Cinder, but his mercy for the visitors was as nonexistent as their willingness to speak. He was not alone, however - and the two monsters swiftly decimated the visitors.

Cinder didn’t want to be a monster, but the more he did the more everyone could only think of him as one. He eventually gave in - not to despair, but to the hate of the rest of dragonkind. If he was given no chance, no hope of ever returning to a normal life - then a monster he would become.

A pearlcatcher with heads of an emperor resting on either shoulder, a pearl broken in half and barely held together by aging spittle, and a weapon that tried so hard to bend Cinder’s mind to its will - a nightmare no Gaoler could imagine, striking them down as The Eight had the shade in The First Age.

The people living in Clan Forsulyn gave him the first home he had in years; a place where bounty hunters dared not tread, where his uncanny ability to bring destruction and ruin was in high demand, and where he wasn’t the most anomalous creature around.
And so, he stood from the fallen horrorbeast and tossed its remains to an emperor as he once again appeared as a normal pearlcatcher.

Well, as normal as a pearlcatcher bearing a godslaying weapon with only half a pearl making small talk with an emperor is. Normal is a strong word to be throwing around in The Mural, after all...

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"Monster? Hmph, how original..."





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