Aracus Scipio
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There was a time when Aracus Scipio believed the gods rewarded humble, honest men. He lived as a farmer who tilled the poor soil outside of Waterdeep, kept a humble home, and, following the passing of his beloved wife during childbirth, measured his wealth by the laughter of his only daughter, Elara. He raised her with all of the love and care that only a man who had experienced loss could muster, and she grew to have a penchant for seeing beauty where others found only hardship. To Aracus, Elara was everything. Her every breath was a reminder that even the bleakest winter could not last forever.
One winter proved him wrong.
A wasting sickness swept through the valley, indifferent to prayers and coin alike. Aracus spent every copper he possessed on healers, clerics, and divine services. He became a frequenter at the Temple of Kelemvor, seeking respite in the words of the priests and tithing what little he could, though none of their reassurances brought him peace, and nothing slowed death's patient hand. When Elara slipped away in his arms, every promise the temples had ever spoken rang hollow. The gods had watched, and they had done nothing.
Aracus’ grief became an emptiness that no prayer could fill. He left his home and wandered Faerûn searching for answers forbidden by decent folk. His path eventually led him to whispered shrines where fearful voices spoke the name Velsharoon, the Archmage of Necromancy. They called him a god of forbidden knowledge, of power stolen from the grave itself. More knowledgeable than even Mystra in the magic of the dead. Decent folk recoiled from the name. Aracus knelt. He knew that if any could put him on the path to obtaining the knowledge necessary to bring his daughter back, it was Velsharoon.
His first sacrifices were small. Ancient tombs were plundered for forgotten grimoires. Sacred burial grounds were desecrated in search of relics and knowledge steeped in death and forgotten to time. Each atrocity sickened him, but each also carried the faintest promise that Elara's voice might someday answer him again.
Years passed, and the line between love and obsession grew more blurred. Villages in his footsteps began to whisper of missing travelers and shrines dedicated to deities of knowledge stripped bare beneath moonless skies. Aracus convinced himself that every horror and sin he committed served a greater mercy. A greater purpose. If one innocent soul was lost so that another might return, was the bargain truly unjust? He knew his actions were truly in pursuit of a greater good, and the questions ceased to trouble him.The dark rituals he conducted granted shadowy visions of Elara instead of true resurrection. He would often glimpse Elara laughing in fields of impossible light before the image dissolved, each vision more detailed than the last. He did not view these as failures, only indications that he was on the right path, and each ritual further fueled his obsession. He reminded himself that Velsharoon never promised success, only deeper mysteries, and Aracus chased each revelation with the desperation of a drowning man reaching for air.
Now he walks the roads of the North, clad in dark robes stitched with fading thread, carrying a morghwood stave in one hand and a weathered doll that once belonged to his daughter in the other. To strangers he appears calm, even gentle, until they stand between him and another fragment of forbidden lore. Then compassion dies without hesitation.
To Aracus, nothing is personal. He seeks only one impossible miracle. If every crypt in Faerûn must be emptied, every oath broken, and every innocent condemned to grant Elara one more heartbeat, he will bear the weight of every unforgivable sin without batting an eye. For in his heart, the world ended the day his daughter closed her eyes, and everything since has been nothing more than the cost he is willing to pay to hear her laugh one more time.
