Kakkab

-that’s priest Kakkab to you
-selfish, silver-tongued Pearlcatcher with some… questionable views on morality
-more of a cultist than a priest, really, but he couldn’t exactly get the Icewarden to enforce his title, so he had to settle for some… lesser patrons
-is definitely possessed by at least one demonic entity at any given moment

-He and Jackal get along great, even though they’re basically opposites: Kakkab is mostly good with a hidden dark side, and worked his way from fodderdom to aristocracy with little effort, while Jackal acts evil but is surprisingly moral at heart, and has suffered his entire life

K A K K A B P R I E S T ╭━━━━━━━━╮ STR ████░░░░░░░░ INT ████████░░░░ AGI █████░░░░░░░ MAG █████████████ CHA █████████░░░ VIT █████░░░░░░░ ╰━━━━━━━━╯ M U S I C ♫ | x | x | x x | x | x

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮ "Insert your dragon's quote here." ╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯ They call him holy, but all Kakkab has really known is demons. They whisper to him from within, beckoning him into darkness, easing his fears with their crooked words. All it would take is a single slip, and they would consume him, drag him down into their shadows. But Kakkab does not slip — he knows the games they play, and he, he alone, has control of the board. A priest he is not, but he wields their weapons in ways they could never imagine, calls the very darkness they so desperately fear to his side. The Icewarden forsook him the day he was born. He was taught to fight, taken from his family and traded away for a pouch of coins. The small camp he called home was full of priests who expounded the Earthshaker’s virtues even as they told him he was of worth only as a tool. The message was clear — he was meant to serve; to serve and nothing more. He bristled under their command: he was more than just the Earthshaker’s servant, more than just some pitiful slave in a cosmic battle he didn’t care one bit about. He would prove them wrong. He would escape. Priesthood was the first step. It was easy enough — a few words in the right ears, and suddenly Kakkab became a loyal student. He was devoted to the Earthshaker, yes. He couldn’t wait to serve! He was so excited to fight and die for his master — or even just organize rocks! He was clearly so earnest, so willing, that it came as no surprise when his trainers told him they wanted him to stay and help them lead. He donned the robes with a private smile, but it soon became apparent it would take more than a title to free him. So he sought help from the forbidden, and called forth a demon. It was a simple matter. Runes drawn in ink; dark symbols from ancient books, pages brittle with age. He’d studied them, knew their words by heart. All part of the lie he told. He was a priest, and priests got access to such forgotten, forbidden things. Priests could walk into the sacred libraries and read whatever they desired, search to their heart’s content until they found the secrets they were looking for. It only took a couple libraries. Religion, as it turned out, kept hold of more forbidden things than even he could have hoped for. The ritual was easy by comparison. The ink runes — black for the Shade, the source of all demons and the foundation of their power — took an hour, no more, to transcribe. The summoning pentacle took even less. The incantation was hard to pronounce, but as he placed his palm in the center of his spellwork, the words came to him easily. Light spilled from the pentacle, inken runes bursting into dark purple fire, and somewhere in the deepest corners of his mind he felt a doorway open. He awoke the next morning to something scratching within him. A darkness twisting at his soul. He entertained fear for a few moments, and then elation. He had done it! So what if his claws weren’t entirely his anymore; they certainly didn’t belong to the shadow inside him. He was the master now, this creature his servant. It would learn to obey, or he would make it. The first couple weeks were the hardest. The demon was determined to fight him, and he had to take care not to let his new power show. bio by author