Bailey Lacrese
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This section contains server-canon Ravenloft information from the Time of Unparalleled Darkness server; see the References below. |
Bailey Lacrese is the bastion of the Second Sect of the Church of Ezra, Toret of the Chapel of the Pure Hearts, and leader of the Blessed Army of Ezra, the church's largest single militant order.
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This section contains canon Ravenloft information from officially published sources; see the References below. |
Granted a vision that there was a demon within the Church of Ezra which would corrupt the church towards the end time, he became obsessed with the newly-created Fourth Sect, and believed this demon was in fact Bastion Teodorus Raines or one of his confidants. He created the Blessed Army of Ezra, an order militant, to protect the church against what he felt was an inevitable strike by the Fourth Sect when the Time of Unparalleled Darkness came.[1]
Background
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This section contains server-canon Ravenloft information from the Time of Unparalleled Darkness server; see the References below. |
However, the most difficult truth to accept can be that we are wrong in our interpretation of visions - but, righteously, Anchorite Bailey Lacrese came to admit such. He would find that his predecessor, Bastion Sarlota Otrava[2], was in fact an Ermordenung - a corrupted soul from Borca whom poison everything they touch and serve the will of the region's Darklord.[3] She had seized upon the Second Sect's messages that even the Legion is not beyond redemption, yet, in contravention of the spirt of this, she was never cleanesed from her corrupted form.[4] In light of this, the Anchorite Lacrese admonished her to choose: to find Ezra's redemption and remove the stain from her soul, or to be destroyed as the Legion she was. In doing so, he exemplified the duality of the Second Sect's teachings, and when he placed upon her indecisive soul an ultimatum after some days, she became enraged, and attacked him. Aided by his enterouge he brought with him from the Blessed Army, he slew the former Bastion, and the Praesidius decided that the role of Bastion now fell to he.[5]
This decision was not without its detractors: some within the Second Sect fell that his appointment was the advantageous appointment of a political assassin. But as time goes on and he exemplifies the Second Sect teachings, the embers of dissent have mostly died off. Importantly, while they did not assume the role he foresaw them achieving, the Blessed Army of Ezra has become an invaluable sword and shield both to the church as the Time of Unparalleled Darkness was upon them, and the newly-minted Bastion has gained something of a reputation for being a cunning strategists with his use of these protectors of the church.
Time will tell if it was enough.
