Vidal Sunshield

🧑‍🎤 Overview

• Full Name: Mahlen Zakhan
• Aliases: Vidal Sunshield
• Race: Human
• Class: Paladin
• Alignment: Chaotic Good
• Age: 48
• Background: Soldier

🎭 Personality & Motivation

• Core Traits:
  • Believes that the world is full of Chaos and Corruption and that it must be destroyed at any cost.
• Flaws & Weaknesses:
  • Brash in his actions, and lacks Forethought
  • Struggles to connect with People or open up
• Personal Goals:
  • Rebuild the power of Sigmar
  • Rid the world of Chaos
  • Take Revenge on his troop from Ildroth

⚔️ Combat & Skills

• Primary Fighting Style:
  • Ruthless at all times, Embuing his own existing strength with his connection to the God Sigmar
• Notable Abilities:
  • Calling upon the will of Sigmar, commonly displayed with golden lightning around his magic
  • A whole lotta death
• Weapons & Gear:
  • A War Hammer
  • Armour
  • Great Shield of The Batavia Army -
  • Prayer Beads

📖 Backstory

Since Sigmar’s disappearance, the religion that he had grown through myths and rumours of his chaotic-good nature has since been crushed by the lesser religions in the religious purging that occurred centuries ago. The destruction of the religion (the Eternals) began in the forest of Nestlbrook with the ransacking and plundering of a long since forgotten temple of worship. This ransacking was the only time that one of Sigmar’s temples was not completely destroyed, and that a small group of priests were spared (however they were killed before they could preach to anyone else). Following the destruction of the Eternals, Sigmar was left unable to leave the core of Mallus and rebuild his religion and save any remaining followers. However, due to an unseen magical entity, the original copy of writings of the Eternals and Sigmar and his deeds were preserved in a magically concealed spot in the Nestlbrook temple, waiting for the Vidal Sunshield to ‘stumble’ across.

Vidal Sunshield is a male, human paladin who is aged 41. He is ex-military, and was part of the Human Empire’s military, serving in the Emperor’s Fist as a lieutenant. However, during his time in the military he went by the name Mahlen Zakhan. His military service was one of action attempting to maintain order across the Human Empire, by fighting the forces of Chaos. During his service, he was responsible for personally eliminating multiple key figures of Chaos, however not everything went to plan. As a soldier he claimed responsibility for the death of any subordinate during military campaigns. This led to many higher-ups viewing him as a risk to his allies, despite being recognised by many of the same higher-ups as a key piece in the maintaining of order.

However, Mahlen’s days in the military were numbered, as fate was sending him towards a split in the path of his life. This split was presented during a secretive mission against the final major agent of Chaos, the red dragon Ildroth (pronounce ill-droth). Before the mission even began, the odds of success were almost zero, and the defining moment was when the commander was viciously butchered by Ildroth, leaving Mahlen as the highest ranking soldier on the battlefield. As a result of his military training, Mahlen tried to distract Ildroth so that his subordinates could flank the dragon and kill it. However, this failed and Ildroth noticed the soldiers and eliminated them whilst forcing Mahlen to watch in an attempt to make him fall to chaos. Despite this, Mahlen stood against Ildroth and attempted to eliminate them, however, Ildroth proceeded to try and bite through his armour and flesh. This was when the power of fate flowed over his body preventing Mahlen from being killed, however this did not prevent him from being harmed by Ildroth’s flame enhanced teeth, which left scars that form the outline of each link of Mahlen’s chainmail breast armour, and the plates of his leg armour plating. The power of fate made Ildroth realise that Mahlen had been given a purpose by the Fate God (Savras) themselves and that the dragon would not be able to kill Mahlen so he proceeded to drop Mahlen in the Emperor’s castle courtyard. Following his recovery, Mahlen was summoned by the Emperor and the military Higher-ups. During this summoning, Mahlen was secretively dishonourably discharged after being informed that being responsible for the death of his commander and subordinates was the final event that confirmed his discharge. However, as the secret mission was revealed to by a failure, Mahlen was forced to change his name and vanish for at least 5 years, which is when he went and crafted the identity of Vidal Sunshield and disappeared into Nestlbrook Forest, whilst the Higher-ups revealed that Mahlen succumbed to his injuries and died (marking his official death). During his discharge, Vidal began suffering from PTSD as a result of the horrors of watching his subordinates being butchered in front of him.

This left Vidal as metaphorical ghost that did not exist according to official imperial documents, who wandered the forest and world looking for his purpose in life (unaware that he was chosen by Savras to restore Sigmar and the Eternals). During his first year following his discharge, Vidal happened upon a village that were celebrating a local god, whose appearance created a shadow that was almost identical in shape to the shadow of Ildroth, which led to Vidal having a panic attack. Vidal then spent the next 4 years running from place to place in fear of being found by Ildroth. This constant state of running ended when Vidal discovered the ruins of Sigmar’s first temple in the Nestlebrook forest. When Vidal was wandering through the forests of Nestlebrook when he felt a sudden desire to walk a specific route, almost as if the forest was showing him the route to the purpose of his life. This was when Vidal discovered the first temple of Sigmar, where he settled down to rest for the night. When he awoke, he began to explore the ruins when he tripped over the hand of a broken statue of Sigmar. As Vidal began to rise from the ground, he noticed a glint coming from a pile of rubble that was littered with moss covered books. As Vidal approached the pile, he felt a mystical sensation (the magic that had protected the Book of Sigmar for centuries) and he began to clear the pile, which was when he first laid his eyes upon the Book of Sigmar.For the next 7 months, Vidal read the Book of Sigmar and realised that his purpose was to begin the resurrection of the Eternals, however, he was unsure how to accomplish this, so he decided to train his body to be in near peak condition, and learn the ways of Sigmar’s Conquest Paladins from their nature (the same Chaotic good as Sigmar) and how they approached each situation. This training resulted in Vidal’s development of his straight forward approach to situation and his knowledge of the successfulness of direct approaches, and thus will always attempt to steer people to taking direct action. After the 7 months of training, Vidal forged a holy symbol (dubbed the Lightning Wrath of Ghal Maraz, the rumoured weapon of Sigmar) and fixed it to his shield.

Following the creation of his holy symbol, Vidal began his journey under the belief of Sigmar and the Order that must be maintained (with the impression that he is the one who must maintain this balance no matter the cost).During his journey Vidal discovered that many military outposts would view him as a lieutenant because he still carried his military shield, and as long as the people Vidal spoke to were a lower rank than him, they would fetch him the amount of horses he requested, under the idea that they would be returned after an agreed upon time (which Vidal had to honour otherwise he would likely be revealed as either an imposter or his history of discharge would be revealed).During his 11th year post-discharge, Vidal decided that his conquest would be better spent as a mercenary for hire as it would give him a better chance at crushing Chaos uprisings and still have enough gold to maintain his supplies. However, after his first successful adventures, Vidal visited the local tavern in Nestlbrook (which set him down the path of a drinker), where he became so drunk that he wandered aimlessly through the nearby forest. During the aimless wander through the Nestlbrook forest, Vidal stumbled across a mystical séance being conducted by the witch Wihnhilda Wraith, who had almost concluded a 3-hour séance that required mystical candles that were near impossible to acquire. Vidal proceeded to interrupt the séance by crushing multiple candles when he wandered over to Wihnhilda, which infuriated Wihnhilda leading to her cursing him with misfortune that would affect him at random points in time.

🕸️ Relationships

• Allies: Mordin - God of Creation (as Edward Windemere), The Atlas Anderi
• Enemies: Ildroth
• Organizations: The Emperor's Fist , Sigmar - God of Blacksmithing, The Atlas Anderi