Description
Adimos' aspect on the material plane is often a brown-haired, brown-eyed human of medium build and height, who wears perfectly tailored, black-stained leather armor. The armor seems to be capable of holding multiple weapons of the size and shape of a dagger, but few have ever seen them and lived to tell. The avatar has a soft, measured voice that carries in a room like a whisper from everywhere all at once.
Adimos may also send corvids as messengers of his favor, or dispatch them to share his displeasure. In the latter case, their beaks are dripping with blood.
Personality
Adimos is utterly fixated on the use of statecraft, spying, murder, and blackmail as a means to (usually) ends that are intended to serve the greater good. He never breaks his deals to commit espionage or murder on the behalf of others, and takes great umbrage with those who ignore or destroy contracts they've accepted to do such things. He believes a lawful society provides the greatest security, and advocates for the necessity of his brutal and evil work as a means to ensure the fruitful reign of even otherwise benevolent rulers.
Abilities
As the most prominent Gylidder Inaethri of Lawful Murder, Adimos has the knowledge and skill to assassinate any creature in existence (with the exception of other Inaethri, of course). His weapons ignore resistance and immunity, as do the poisons he coats them with, and he has an uncanny eye for weakness second only to his sense of timing.
His price for killing on the behalf of others is impossibly high, however, but a portion of his might can be made manifest through Divine magic. Adimos grants ruinous powers to those who serve murder for the right reasons - his reasons - but doesn't hold a grudge against those who turn away from his service... so long as their contracts are fulfilled.
Worshippers
"We are yours to command, bound into your service as you are tethered to the sacred contract that bears your blood. Speak through mine, as I shed mine for thee, and speak naught but a whisper as to the target we must slay in your name."
— Prime Sanctioner Isisil Amakir
Aside from the lip service he is paid by those caught up in the acts of espionage or murder, Adimos' true clergy - known as the Sanctioned - is relatively small and secretive. They are also closely knit, heeding Adimos' every command while also observing his maxims of unity and brotherhood among their fellow 'weapons of civility.' Though most priests live among others and keep no shrines, there is a hidden temple beneath the city of Orlewynd, where the truly devout gather to reaffirm their faith during the daylight hours of the longest night of the year. The Sanctioned call this Winter Solstice holiday the "Night Watch."
As an Inaethri, Adimos is
feared and
respected in inequal measure - the culture of Gylidd believes deeply that there will always be knives in the dark waiting for the unwary and the undisciplined, prepared to act mercilessly upon both their targets and any hapless witnesses. Though few are responsible for funding such dark deeds and the Rhuddinwyd's soft influence discourages the practice, Gylidders continue to fear it, and therefore the Inaethri himself. Insidiously, Adimos is also a patron of certain acts of 'adventuring' - particularly when a group of 'heroes' are paid to travel and slay creatures in cold blood, and
especially when they feel justified in doing so. Adimos cannot be destroyed until another being takes his place as the incarnation of lawful, sanctioned assassination - or Gylidd in its entirety learns to leave the practice behind.
Activities
Since his Inaethrid, Adimos has been fixated upon the assassination of the chaotic elements of the Pantheons of Gylidd. Likeminded Inaethri have encouraged their worshippers to listen to the sermons of the Binder's most faithful priests, acting with them as they use blackmail and murder as a catalyst to encourage law and order in the faiths of chaotic deities.
Adimos is often credited with the invention of such masterful, mundane devices as the Nightsuit and Softstep shoes - a trademark of his lesser known legacy as a master leatherworker in his time. Adimos is often present when such crafters ply their trade in the dark, subtly encouraging new inventions that can facilitate a greater mastery of stealth and espionage.
Divine Realm
Adimos' outer plane is Nytai, fashioned into the shape of a massive city built into a daunting cliff face in countless tiers. The sun shines only briefly - and brilliantly - in rays that break through a noiseless thunderstorm that drenches the city from top to bottom in an endless torrent. His divine realm is a maze of deep shadows, populated by devils and other extraplanar creatures like invisible stalkers that swim through the twilight with ease.
Adimos has neither throne nor a physical seat of power there, although he does lead it from the shadows. Nytai's ostensible ruler is an old soldier named Rhedon who wields a scythe in battle, and has no choice but to condone the murderous actions the Night Captain takes in his name. Those who worshipped Adimos in life, or who are judged to have aligned their values with his, are quickly put to work in the afterlife as guards who watch over his perfect city.
Possessions
Adimos' avatars wear masterful suits of magical leather armor that absorb sound, heat, weight, and light to prevent his presence from being sensed by any means, should he wish to go unnoticed.
In addition, his avatars wield
Skive, a vorpal dagger that ignores all resistance and immunity to damage, and confers the same property on any poisons applied to its surface.
History
Adimos Artan was a somewhat scrupled human rogue during the Age of Isolation, who served as a night watch guard captain in a major port city (which has since been lost to the Brume). Before this, he had served in multiple guilds as an assassin for hire, and the port city on the edge of the frontier represented the last place on the map for him to get a fresh start away from his own troubles. When one of his former employers found out he was there, they pressured him into accepting a contract on one of the adventurers in the city, who ended up helping him become free of his past after thwarting their own assassination. His proximity to the legend of this adventuring party, which would eventually thwart a demonic uprising that threatened Myzelis, gave birth to his Inaethrid alongside the Pantheon of the Island.
