Rustar Mayiishan

“Fear thrives in the dark. So I walk toward it.”

A copper-scaled dragonborn monk whose discipline burns hotter than flame, Rustar does not flinch from horror.

He seeks it.

Who He Is

Rustar Mayiishan is a warrior of deliberate motion and measured breath. Years of solitude and training have forged in him a calm that borders on unsettling.

Where others rush to steel and shield, Rustar studies rhythm; of breath, of heartbeat, of violence.

His presence is quiet. His strikes are not.

Why He Came to Drakkenheim

Drakkenheim is a city of ruin, corruption, and monsters.

Rustar sees it differently.

He believes the Sacred Flame shines brightest where fear is greatest. If terror walks openly through the streets of the fallen capital, then it must be faced openly in return.

He has come not merely to survive the ruins, but to confront what others refuse to look at.

What drives that conviction runs deeper than he has yet explained.

Personality

• Controlled and observant
• Direct, but rarely emotional
• Unmoved by intimidation
• Drawn toward danger rather than away from it

Rustar does not boast. He does not complain.
When something must be faced, he steps forward.

Reputation (So Far)

• Swift and precise in combat
• Willing to accept challenges others might avoid
• Calm even when overwhelmed

He has already shown a willingness to test himself against unknown threats, sometimes at personal cost.

Recent Developments

The Walk to the Stones

After the descent beneath the Rat's Nest Tavern, Rustar took on more contamination than he was willing to carry forward. He did not speak of it at length to the party. He shouldered his pack, told them he would walk to the Shrine of the Old Gods outside Emberwood, and left.

The shrine sits beyond the last of the village's cottages, where a path threads into a grove of dying trees. Seven standing stones ring a small clearing. The leaves cling to branches that should have shed them months ago. The wind does not stir them.

Rustar went there to fast and pray until the contamination passed and the Flame answered.

He did not go alone.

Old Zoya at the Stones

At the pedestal between the seven stones, candles were already burning when he arrived. Someone was tending them with discipline.

"You're the one with the Flame in his mouth but the quiet in his eyes. Sit down or leave. I don't have patience for both."

The voice belonged to Old Zoya — small, bent, white-haired, wrapped in a cloak of overlapping bird feathers. The villagers call her a witch. She does not correct them.

Rustar sat.

What followed was a conversation longer than any prayer Rustar had ever offered.

Zoya kept the Old Gods — older than the Sacred Flame, older than the Academy, older than any kingdom that had ever burned. She spoke of balance rather than righteousness, of birth and death as equal partners, of Morrigan the Phantom Queen as one voice among many that the Old Faith still listened to.

She did not ask Rustar to abandon the Flame.

She asked him a different question: had it ever truly answered him?

Rustar did not answer aloud. He listened. He asked questions of his own. When he eventually returned to Emberwood — cleansed, but not unchanged — he carried a small bone charm in his pack. A raven's beak wrapped in red twine, with a spiral carved into it by a steady hand.

Not a holy symbol. Not a magic item. A reminder.

"When the Flame's silence gets loud again, hold this and listen to what the silence is actually saying."

He has not stopped wearing his faith. But he has begun to listen for what the Sacred Flame has not been saying.

A Quiet Question for Drakzen

That same evening, in the relative quiet of Emberwood, Rustar asked Drakzen whether the Flame still spoke to him.

Drakzen answered with scripture. The candle is the light. It shines to bring illumination to all. When the candle snuffs out, there is no more illumination. He spoke of being blessed by the Light.

Rustar listened. He did not press further.

The two dragonborn faithful share a flame. They have begun, quietly, to share it differently.

The Forge Thread

Tobias Crowe at the smithy has been good to his word. The smith has connections in the dwarven trades, and he has been quietly working a contact regarding meteoric iron — the rare alloy Rustar may need for what comes next. Nothing concrete has been delivered yet, but the conversation is alive, and Tobias has signaled it is worth Rustar's patience.

Separately, Aldor the Immense — the dwarf-merchant who keeps a shop in Emberwood — has been searching for a pair of Bracers of Ogre Strength on Rustar's behalf. One attempt has come up short. Aldor was unbothered.

"These things take time, dragonborn. Patience and coin and the right contact. We'll try again."

The next attempt will be easier than the first. The one after that, easier still.

An Unsent Thought

On the third morning back in Emberwood, before the day's pressures arrived, Rustar caught himself thinking about the Silver Order. About the rumors of a relic at the Chapel of Saint Brenna. About the work the knights were doing at Camp Dawn.

If they're doing healing, they can't be all bad.

He did not say it aloud to the party. He simply held it, the way he holds the bone charm, and let the thought stand on its own merit.

The Sacred Flame had not told him what to think about the Silver Order.

Neither had Old Zoya.

He was learning to listen anyway.

Looking Toward the Garden

Before the Chapel of Saint Brenna, Rustar's mind was already further ahead: the Inner City, and Queen's Garden in particular. How the party gets in there, and how they survive it, is a question he hasn't put down.

The Charm Speaks

Rustar led Six and Tough Luck out to Old Zoya's stones so she could speak to them about their contamination. On the way back out of the grove, the raven's-beak charm Rustar has carried since his first visit let out a sharp squawk — the first sound it has ever made.

He had no explanation for it. He wrapped it in a towel and didn't take it back out for the rest of the night.

That same night, Aldor the Immense came up short on the Bracers of Ogre Strength a second time. He remains confident the next attempt will land easier.

Monsters of Drakkenheim

Pluto Jackson is putting together a book, Monsters of Drakkenheim, and wants it built on real accounts rather than tavern exaggeration. He asked Rustar for exactly that. Rustar corrected more than one entry already in Pluto's notebook — the Warp Witches' real danger was never physical, and the ratlings beneath the city are neither mindless nor alone down there.

Pluto took it in stride. Later, Rustar put twenty gold on Pluto to beat Old Rattlecan inside three rounds at the Bark & Buzzard. Pluto did it in two.

In the Dark

At the Black Ivory Inn, Rustar found the way through the kitchens — past produce far too fresh for a ruined city — to the stairs leading down. In the smugglers' warehouse beyond, a protean abomination went straight for him, enveloped him in the corner, and slammed him unconscious before the rest of the party could react.

He came back from it. His training is finally taking hold. The Flame in him stays cool.

Still Searching

The morning before the champion fight, Rustar sat in meditation and went back over the fights, visualizing one thing: dodging. Deep in the trance, the raven's-beak charm in his pouch squawked a single word.

"DODGE."

Zoya told him it wasn't magic. It has now spoken.

Rustar checked in again with Aldor the Immense at Caravan Court about the Bracers of Ogre Strength. Aldor still hasn't found a pair. He hasn't stopped looking.

In the pits, Rustar heard the crowd cheering for good fighting, plain and simple, and gave them plenty of it.

Present Status

Currently operating out of Emberwood Village with the party, Rustar continues to walk toward the fear others would avoid.

He still believes the Flame shines brightest where the dark gathers thickest.

He is no longer certain it is the only light worth listening for.

Most recent session: Session 19 - The Queen Walked Out