Zorath Kael, the Crystal Harrower

Name   Zorath Kael, the Crystal Harrower   Race   Human (mutated by Geardaz’s corruption)   Date of Birth   3 / 11 / 377 PR ([Body warped to remain in prime condition)   History Early Life (377–398 PR)   Zorath Kael was born in the slums of the Tibur Empire’s frontier, in a city where magic was tightly controlled and heretics were executed. His father was a failed alchemist who dabbled in unstable crystal-weaving; his mother, a former temple scribe who had lost her faith. Zorath grew up poor, scorned, and beaten, but his curiosity for the unnatural never wavered. By the age of sixteen, he was breaking into ruins in the marshes near Nedder Reach, collecting fragments of broken artifacts said to be cursed.   When his father attempted a ritual using shards of teal crystal unearthed from the swamps, the experiment tore the man apart. The shards sank into Zorath’s skin, fusing with his veins and leaving him forever marked. Branded a heretic and witchspawn, he was cast out of his city.   The Fall into Madness (398–410 PR)   Exile broke him. Wandering the wastes, Zorath’s crystal scars began to whisper, showing him impossible geometry and horizons of shifting teal skies—the Realm of Geardaz. These visions grew until he could no longer tell what was real. He was found by outcasts of the Morvael Tribe, who briefly sheltered him, believing him a vessel of swamp-spirits. But when Zorath’s madness erupted in a storm of teal lightning that killed three elders, he was driven into the marshes to die.   Instead, he sought the voice in his veins.   Becoming Geardaz’s Champion (410–420 PR)   During a ritual Zorath made a portal to the God Hands Realm, Zorath carved runes into his own flesh, begging the god of trickery and aberration to claim him. The veil split, and he was pulled into the teal-blue wastelands of Geardaz. There he endured the endless trials: battling crystalline spearmen, warped mind flayers, and beholders swollen with living crystal. Each wound healed into jagged shards. Each defeat broke and remade him.   Where others lost identity, Zorath surrendered willingly. He allowed his sanity to fracture, offering every splinter of himself as a mirror for Geardaz’s will. When he rose again, he was no longer Zorath Kael but the Crystal Harrower—a Champion forged of madness, deception, and aberration. His eyes became cracked prisms, his voice layered with whispers, and his flesh pulsed with veins of shifting crystal.   Now – Servant of Geardaz and the God Hands (420 PR – Present)   Today, Zorath is Geardaz’s corrupter in the mortal plane. Unlike Ivar the Undefeated, who wages war with brute force, or Vaelthar the Fractured, who thrives as a mirror of distortion, Zorath is the spreader. He brings Geardaz’s teal wasteland into the world by planting shards of living crystal that warp terrain, minds, and flesh. Armies who march against him find their weapons bending, their thoughts turning against them, and their comrades transforming into warped thralls of crystal and madness.   Among the God Hands’ legions, Zorath is feared even by his allies. He delights in unraveling reality, taking apart certainties, and showing mortals the fragility of their sanity. His enemies whisper that to fight him is to fight yourself—your shadow, your fears, your body broken and reassembled in Geardaz’s design.   He serves as a prophet and herald: wherever his teal crystals grow, Geardaz’s hand is never far behind.