PCs:Jayem Dareau
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Jayem Dareau
Race: Human
Class: Cleric / Fighter
Affilliations: Cleric of Senath
Former Affilliations: Cleric of Bobil
Life in the city of Andarr, the westernmost of the Seven Cities, was good for the Dareau family. Their business was not one of the largest but the sheer volume of trade that flowed through the port meant even a tiny fraction of this was enough to be moderately wealthy. Jayem was almost certain to follow his father into the family business of acting as brokers between the southern states of Avlis and the Kurathene until this changed with the discovery of vile betrayal.
For years the most trusted of their managers had been embezzling from the firm and lying to their customers. An entire web of lies had been woven and just as this was about to part the manager vanished, taking a large amount of gold with him and leaving binding contracts on the firm behind. These contracts had been signed with some very powerful people and they wanted what they had been promised, whatever the cost to the Dareau family.
Jayem’s parents were left almost destitute with the business, their home, and many of their belongings seized to pay most of the debts and fulfil the contracts. His father accepted a five-year period of indentured servitude to pay the remaining debt. Jayem, his mother, and his siblings protested but their father was firm that he wanted to take this onto himself alone so that his children and his wife could act unconstrained by the limits that would bind him for those five years.
There was little that Jayem could do but accept this and leave to seek his fortune away from the stigma that, for now at least, was surrounding the Dareau name in Andarr. He hoped to find this fortune in the Kurathene and so took ship for the north. This was the first of many mistakes as he should have considered that some of the customers cheated by the manager had been Kurathene nobles.
After eking out a living for several months and having his attempts to improve his situation blocked at every turn by the influence of those nobles Jayem was becoming more desperate. While travelling though he heard of the religion of Bobil, the minotaur bodyguard to Angadar who had been loyal to his master and been rewarded with demi-godhood when his master rose to godhood. The idea that somewhere something had such perfect loyalty that it remained loyal to its master through so much, and that this loyalty was rewarded rather than betrayed, held a great attraction to Jayem. His father had thought the manager was loyal and had been loyal to the manager despite the clues to the manager’s true nature.
It was a long journey to study the philosophy of Bobil requiring Jayem to cross the south of the Kurathene, the north of Deglos, and the width of Drotid to reach Grantir on the eastern shore. This journey as only survived with a lot of luck and a great willingness to run. Looking back on it Jayem could hardly believe he had made it, only ignorance of the dangers had given him the confidence to go on.
Eventually Jayem reached his destination and after dedicated study was ordained as a Cleric of Bobil. Jayem thought about what this meant to him and decided that just as Bobil had served Angadar so should Bobil’s clerics serve Angadar’s. He had heard of the great temple to Angadar in Elysia and decided that would be a good place to begin his service.
Jayem passed his time in Elysia making friends and, far away from the Kurathene, being able to improve his situation financially as well as spiritually. As the memory of the betrayal by the manager faded and became less raw though he began to question himself again. The more people that expressed surprise at Jayem’s interpretation of Bobil the more he began to wonder whether he had a unique interpretation or simply a mistaken one. Eventually his doubts became too great and he realised he had lost his faith in Bobil, or rather had lost his faith that he was actually worshipping Bobil rather than only his own idea of Bobil.
He was not arrogant enough to assume his interpretation was right and everyone else, including the clerics that had trained him, was mistaken and with this realisation Jayem felt Bobil’s power withdraw from him. For months Jayem drifted and studied other god’s beliefs. Being a cleric felt right but having forsworn one god already he did not want to rush into anything, to make another mistake of that magnitude.
Increasingly he harked back to the gods of his childhood but Hurine, god of merchants, seemed inappropriate for what he had become. Senath though, as god of strategy in all aspects of life rather than just in warfare, seemed more fitting. A merchant needed a business strategy as much as a warrior needed a combat strategy so Senath had always been given some respect in the Dareau household and they had sometimes travelled to Bullwark to pray in the temple to Senath there.
Journeying from Elysia to Nutzdagezehesple Jayem sought an audience with the chief cleric in the War College of Senath there. As the man spoke Jayem felt more confident in his choice of deity to serve and managed to answer the cleric’s questions to his satisfaction and gain admittance into that church. Since then Jayem has continued to serve Senath and try to promote the use of strategy as Senath desires. He still doubts that he is as good a cleric as he should be, that he has been aggressive enough in giving advice rather than providing it mostly only when asked.