Teodorus Raines
Teodorus Raines is the Bastion of the Fourth Sect of Ezra, based out of Nevuchar Springs within Darkon. He is a feverent follower of Ezra, espousing a doomsday message of urgency - we must take immediate action to save the faithful from the predations of the Legions, says he.[1] Unlike the first, second, and third sect Bastions, he remains the writer of His Sect's revelation. This makes him and Bastion Emmanuelle Skyshard the remaining two writer contemporaries. The two are known to conflict strongly upon some matters - but unlike some what would expect, have respected each other's authority within their given sect greatly. As Bastion within the time of darkness he foresaw, Teodorus has been a passionate fighter against the Legion, and one of the church's military mights.
Background
Teodorus is one of the more experienced missonaries of the faith; along with the long journey he had to found his sect, he was a stalwart member of the first sect for a considerable lifetime before that. His journey as the founder of the Fourth Sect is something of legend within the faith, and it is often recounted to new members of the faith.
Teodorus Raines was born in Darkon in 723 BC. Prior to the the Great Upheaval in 740 BC, he traveled to Borca to study Ezra’s teachings under the Home Faith. His demeanor was tense and suspicious demeanor; his vision dark and foreboding. He maintained strict adherence to the letter of Ezra’s scriptures, and was granted his shield of Ezra as one of her clerics. The young anchorite was advised by some of his teachers, however, not to present Ezra’s teachings in such bleak terms.
Perhaps overly influenced by the legends of his homeland, Raines spoke of the Legions of the Night as if they were eternally clawing at the very doors of the Great Cathedral of Levkarest. The Great Upheaval lent weight to Raines's words, and he argued that it was nothing less than an attempt by the Mists of Death to expel Ezra from their ranks, the first omen of a coming age when the Legions of the Night would scour the world clean.
Although the Church elders did not see the world in Raines’ apocalyptic terms, Praesidius Raskolka summoned a Bastions' Council. With the agreement of Bastions Denisovich of Mordentshire and Secousse of Port-a-Lucine, the Praesidius declared that Ezra's anchorites had an urgent duty to spread the word of Ezra to the four corners of the Core, even to those lands where existing religions stood in opposition to that word. Even more than had been the case before, young anchorites were encouraged to travel the Land of Mists. There were worthy works to do in Ezra’s name and there were new temples to establish in her honour.
Warden Raines was part of this new wave of evangelical anchorites. He returned to Darkon in 740 BC and began to preach Ezra’s message to any who would listen, yet his prosletysing was met with stiff opposition. He had two great enemies, for Darkon's spiritual heart was in the grip of two state-sponsored religions: the Faith of the Overseer, widely embraced in Martira Bay, and the Eternal Order, somewhat begrudgingly adhered to throughout the rest of the land. Raines held -- correctly, but not popularly -- that both faiths were false, mechanations of a state that wished to better control its population. This bore him powerful enemies, and the young anchorite was threatened repeatedly by priests of the Eternal Order. Indeed, on one occasion he even had his lips sliced open. Still, he persevered.
In the end, Raines's survival owned much to the fact that his influence was negligible. By the time the Great Cathedral was finally completed in 745 BC, Raines had already traveled through half of Darkon, never finding a receptive audience to his fire-and-brimstone sermons. Meanwhile, visiting anchorites sent back word to the Home Faith that Raines had altered his proselytizing style since leaving Borca. Claiming that Ezra herself was granting him prophetic visions, Warden Raines now spoke of a coming apocalypse that he called the Time of Unparalleled Darkness. He insisted that ranks of the Legions of the Night would swell until they overran the land. The Mists of Death, sickened by their creations, would then destroy the world, wiping the slate clean. Ezra would spare all she could from this final doom, but her pact with the Mists of Death would only allow her to save those who had accepted her message into their hearts.
There were two causes for concern for the Home Faith in particular in Raines's sermons. First, he declared that if anyone not included among Ezra’s pious followers, stood among the Legions of the Night. Second, he claimed the Time of Unparalleled Darkness would arrive within a single generation. The Home Faith was distressed by Raines's extreme interpretation of the scriptures. However, Raines continued to receive the shield of Ezra, the only sure sign that an anchorite was indeed serving Ezra in the Grand Scheme. Thus the Home Faith allowed him to continue his proselytizing, though they lent him very little support, and were wary of his message.
And so 750 BC came, and Raines was out of options: all of Darkon stretched behind him, and like Yakov in the founding of the faith, he had but a scarce few converts and no temples to his name. Yet, also like Yahov, Raines' failures only made him all the more determined to spread Ezra's word. By the end of the year, he had settled in Nevuchar Springs, with his small group of converts, trying in vain to convert more. Yet, when most darkonians listened to Raines's words, they found only the paranoid ranting of a madman.
That is, until the city of Il-Aluk was destroyed in the event that became known as the Requiem, and a pall fell over the whole of the city, now dubbed the Necropolis. Suddenly, Raines's horrific prophecy had been proven true, and he found his audience at last.
With the terror and abhorrence towards the fate of Il-Aluk well in hand, Raines was able to drive the priests of the Eternal Order from Nevuchar Springs. Seizing their temple, Raines rededicated the grounds to Ezra, and named it the Last Redoubt.
Once he was thus established, Raines returned briefly to Levkarest, accompanied by half a dozens of his followers. He graced his superiors with his nightmarish visions in the form of the Fourth Book of Ezra, and revealed to them that he and the Anchorites he had trained, had been granted a new Shield of Ezra, protecting them from the corruption of the Legions of Night. With thus, the requirements for the Rite of Revelation were satisfied, and Raines returned to Nevuchar Springs as the Bastion of the Fourth Sect of Ezra.[2]
Statistics
Human male, Cleric 10, Fighter 5, Anchorite of Ezra 2, lawful evil
