Rastephan the Defiled

Rastephan is an erinyes who appears in the Undesirables Campaign. He is played by I.W.

Description

Appearance

Rastephan stands over seven feet tall with pale white skin and jet black hair. His hair falls past his shoulders in a windswept tangle. On his back is a set of large, feathered wings. The feathers are black, but with a red sheen as if they had been dipped in blood. Rastephan's eyes are pure black, besides his irises, which are a bright blue. He has a muscular physique, with his torso exposed, only the belt for his greatsword slung over his shoulder on his upper half. He wears black leather pants with spiked greaves covering his legs.

Personality

Having spent ten thousand years in isolation, Rastephan has become unhinged. Every word he speaks is laced with malice, despite having a very upbeat intonation. He revels in watching people corrupt their ideals and seems to get joy out of antagonizing others to bring out their anger. Despite this, there is a desperation to him, as he is willing to make deals that hold far less benefit for him than it does to those he offers them to.

Biography

Background

Rastephan was once an archangel of Selûne. He was sent to Malgrave to defend her mortal followers during the Reclamation War, where he served on the front lines, fighting demons and devils. In his moments of rest, he began to develop bonds with the mortals that fought at his side, eventually falling in love with a priestess of the Duskmen and siring a child with her. While he would outlive them both, he never faltered in his duty to protect the people of Malgrave.
As the war raged on, Selûne was temporarily sealed into one of the two moons, diminishing her power enough to remove her protection from Rastephan. Even as an archangel, the blood of the fiends he was slaying began to corrupt him, overtaking his pure nature. Eventually, it was enough to cause him to fall from celestial grace and become a fiend himself. Fighting against his new influence and desires, he began to crave sustenance in the form of corrupted souls. He chose to take it from other devils. As his creation and corruption fought each other inside himself and in his mind, his psyche began to crack. Lashing out at innocent and evil alike, it took both to bring him down and kill him. Since he was now a fiend, through and through, his soul would descend into the Nine Hells, rather than returning to Selûne. There, he began a rampage against the other devils, slaughtering many and diverting their attention from Malgrave.
While it might have been considered heroic, he had lost himself completely and was instead feeding on the powers of the dead fiends as he cut them down. Gaining immense strength at a rapid pace, the devils had to work together to try and kill him once and for all. They would not be able to manage it, instead resorting to a poison used to fight celestials to weaken Rastephan enough to imprison him inside a Mirror of Life Trapping. They sealed the mirror away inside one of Malgrave's mountains where he would remain for ten thousand years.

The Undesirables

In the ealry part of the second century of the Age of Tranquility, General Arseny Vadima was guided to dig into the North Irongate Mountains by an entity, later confirmed to be a nagpa, where the Mirror of Life Trapping would be found. Vadima would be offered a great deal in exchange for freeing Rastephan. The general proved too fearful of the fallen angel to take the chance and was given dark and forbidden knowledge as temptations to reconsider. While he never did, the experiments run on innocents with that dark knowledge hold Rastephan directly responsible for their suffering. In 156 AT, General Vadima would be killed by the Undesirables and the mirror would come into the possession of Romeo.
Claiming to not remember his name, Romeo decided to call the erinyes 'Juliet'. They would end up making a deal that Romeo would be kept safe and provided with any information on the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In exchange, Romeo would release him in one year. This deal would later be revised to take another month of of his imprisonment to expand the range of knowledge he would provide to Romeo. He has taken a great interest in Gol'rotta, the interest seeming to stem from whatever in her past made her become an Oathbreaker.

Relationships

Romeo

As there has been a pact made between 'Juliet' and Romeo, the kobold has been carrying the Mirror of Life Trapping with him in order to have access to the promised information from the devil at any time. "Juliet' has taken to using his powers to have enough control over the mirror to now always be able to see the outside world and has been talking nearly non-stop to the kobold since. He has been true to his word and provided all information Romeo has requested, even things not within the contract, to an extent.

Ürsa

There is a distinct difference in how he treats everyone and how he treats Ürsa. He seems to relish the suffering inflicted upon Astrid Tinnik and the anger it brings to Ürsa to know that it was Rastephan's actions that led to it. He seemed to rile up the werebear by saying that he knew Ürsa's name, only for Ürsa to respond that he knew the devil's name as well.

Character Information

Quests

General Arseny's notes contain information on how to bind Rastephan to a caster, making him an ally for the foreseeable future. He can also have pacts made with him, usually for his freedom even before gaining a claim to the pact holder's soul. How successful these pacts or the ritual are determines if he will be a problem that needs to be dealt with.

Quotations

• "I wouldn't take your soul. Not yet. I'd rather be free, so you're safe. For now."

• "I've got a secret, but it's not my secret to give. Why don't I give it back to it's owner? I know your name, Duskman."