Drakzen

"The Light does not fear the dark. It reveals it."

A dragonborn paladin marked by faith and discipline, Drakzen walks willingly into the ruins of Drakkenheim not for glory but for pilgrimage.

Who He Is

Drakzen is a devoted servant of the Sacred Flame, bearing its symbol openly upon his armor. His presence carries both conviction and restraint, and he speaks of duty not as burden, but as alignment.

Where others see chaos, he sees corruption.
Where others see opportunity, he sees responsibility.

He does not flinch from the danger of Drakkenheim. He believes he was meant to face it.

Why He Came to Drakkenheim

The fall of the city was not merely political or arcane — it was spiritual.

Drakzen seeks the ruined holy sites of Drakkenheim: cathedrals, shrines, forgotten sanctuaries now buried in ash and delerium.

He intends to walk those places.
To cleanse what can be cleansed.
To bear witness where others have abandoned hope.

Whether the Light still answers within the Haze remains to be seen.

The Order of Light

Drakzen was raised by a small contemplative brotherhood within the greater Silver Order — the Order of Light. Its knights did not march as an army. They kept vigil over holy sites, performed sacred rites, and preserved relics in times of decline.

The Order of Light was fading for decades before the meteor fell. When Drakkenheim was shattered, the last of his brothers were in the city, tending its holy places. None survived.

Drakzen walks, now, as the last of his line. He does not speak of it often.

The rest of the Silver Order — the modern, crusader Order under Knight-Captain Theodore Marshal — regards the contemplative path with mixed feelings. Some younger knights consider the Order of Light a relic better left buried. Others, particularly older knights who remember the way things once were, honor it with real reverence.

Drakzen's presence in Drakkenheim is itself a small miracle to those who still remember what his Order stood for.

Personality

Direct and principled
Calm in crisis
Measured in speech
Unafraid of moral clarity

Drakzen does not sermonize but neither does he compromise easily.

Reputation (So Far)

Reliable in combat
Firm but fair in judgment
Willing to stand at the front
A genuine son of the older Sacred Flame traditions

He has sought counsel with Flamekeeper Hanna in Emberwood, and was formally recognized by Sir Gideon Harrow — a senior knight of the Silver Order — as the last of the Order of Light. High Flamekeeper Ophelia Reed has since extended her personal trust, and her commission.

Recent Developments

The Audience at Camp Dawn

Drakzen was received at Camp Dawn by High Flamekeeper Ophelia Reed, who had been expecting them.

She named the threat plainly: three factions moving on the Chapel of Saint Brenna, each seeking the Sceptre of Saint Vitruvio. She asked the party to go ahead of them — to recover the Sceptre and bring it back to the Order.

For Drakzen, she had something more specific.

"The Chapel of Saint Brenna holds the remains of clerics and paladins of the old order. It also holds Saint Brenna herself. Her rest, I'm told, has been disturbed."

"I will not ask you to do what your order demands of you. But if you choose to, the Order will know that the last of the Order of Light walked into a desecrated chapel and made it holy again. That's a story that's been waitin' to be told for fifteen years."

She pressed an ember pendant into his hand before he left. A personal gift, not an institutional one.

The Chapel of Saint Brenna

The party entered the ruins. They crossed the Drann at Stick's Ferry. They reached the Chapel.

Inside, beneath the chapel's undercroft, Drakzen found the Tomb of Saint Brenna.

Her rest had indeed been disturbed. Her body had risen.

He fought her.

And when the fight was done, he knelt beside her remains and performed the Rite of the Last Ember — the funerary rite of the Order of Light, spoken over her body by candlelight and holy water, in a chamber that had not heard those words in fifteen years.

Saint Brenna is at rest.

The rite is complete.

The names he spoke were given to him by Ophelia Reed before he entered the ruins — a record of Saint Brenna and the brothers of the Order of Light who died in her chapel: A Note from the High Flamekeeper

The full text of the liturgy he spoke can be found here: The Liturgy of the Last Ember

The Sceptre of Saint Vitruvio

In the Hidden Reliquary beneath the chapel, Drakzen found the Sceptre of Saint Vitruvio — a length of polished bone bound in silver — resting on the open palms of a statue of the saint himself.

When he touched it, a voice spoke in his mind.

He lit the candles. He lit the pyre. He bore what the Sceptre asked of him.

He carries it now, wrapped and concealed.

What happens to it next is a question he has not yet answered.

In the north crypts, he also saw Twilight — a greatsword that sheds its own dim light, still resting in the hands of the paladin who carried it into the city and never carried it out.

He left it where it lay.

The Sceptre Returned

The answer came at Camp Dawn. Drakzen had worried how the Silver Order would receive this group — he did not want Frankie anywhere near the camp, and prayed the Order wouldn't force his hand. Frankie waited outside under Augustine's watch.

Ophelia Reed received the Sceptre of Saint Vitruvio herself. In return, the Order gave the party a Necklace of Adaptation, 250 gold each, and a healing potion each. Knight-Captain Theodore Marshal was elsewhere. Drakzen has still not met him.

Before that, Drakzen and Doc gave Ansom Lang the honest report he'd been owed since before the Chapel, nothing held back.

Something Old and Wrong

At the Black Ivory Inn, Drakzen's Divine Sense caught something old and wrong beneath the building before anyone else knew to look. When the food finally came, he didn't trust it, and left his plate untouched.

The horses the party borrowed from Camp Dawn to reach the Inn have not yet gone back. They sit on his conscience.

The Pits

Drakzen fought every match of the Buckledown Row ladder alongside the others. He did not pretend to enjoy it. Asked what he made of the crowd, he called it repulsive.

The Queen's champion, Big Linda, opened her fight with a spray of acid that put him on the ground before he could act.

Hanna's Word

At the Chapel of Saint Ardenna, Flamekeeper Hanna recognized the holy water Six brought for his cleansing as unusually pure — consecrated in the rite Drakzen performed at the Chapel of Saint Brenna. Afterward, she spoke with Drakzen privately. The Flame burns hot in Six, she said. She also sees a darkness there.

Present Status

Drakzen has walked into a desecrated chapel and made it holy again.

He is not done.

The Cathedral of Saint Vitruvio still stands in ruins at the heart of the city. So does Saint Selina's Monastery. So does the chapel in Castle Drakken itself.

The Sceptre of Saint Vitruvio is back in the Order's hands.

The pilgrimage continues.

Most recent session: Session 19 - The Queen Walked Out