Audovauld Bromae of Lorcilly: The Patron Saint of Battle

Saint Bromae

-5931 ON to -5879 ON 

Saint Bromae is the patron saint of battle and one of the most important figures to the Pentaphany, the largest religion on the planet Kyr. He was specifically devoted to the temple of Alar, the god of war in the temple of the Five. He was known for leading and fighting against the mass undead invasion known as the Cold Death where liches and vampires that were hidden in the depths of the cold sea marched upon the north to reclaim lands that were once theirs. Many stories abound from that time of his bravery and courage, his ability to lead men, and of the blessings and miracles he did on and off the battlefield. He is also a special figure to magic users across Pentandom, the lands that worship the Pentaphanic gods, due to his key role in freeing them from the original proscription the Pentaphany had upon the use of magic. He ascended to anathemahood, a demi-godlike state of power, to continue his master's work upon the world. He is often silent, as quiet as his god, but he is known to lend his power to his believers and adherents. He is seen as a figure representing the struggles the kinds have had in defending civilization.

Audovauld Bromae was born to the blacksmith Berengar Bromae and his wife the seamstress Rinilda in the town of Lorcilly which was found in what is now modern southern Ravois. Growing up, Audovauld was taught to become a blacksmith by his father and to learn the family craft. His mother told him stories of myths and legends from a tome that her family had passed down for centuries. Due to the nature of his father's work, Audovauld was often in the company of soldiery. He attended ceremonies, marches, dinners, and events that his father was invited to for his work in making arms for the legions of Mekkhor, the empire that ran from the north of Lekkas to the bottom of Malkhabir. There he saw the warriors and heard their tales of heroism and valor and decided he wanted to become one. His father attempted to dissuade him of this want but his head was full of the stories of legends and these men he looked up to and Berengar could not stop him. He grew in the fief of the Archon Cyr, a well-known warlord and loyal governor of the Mekkhor Empire. When he came of age, he joined the local archon's forces. He trained well and became a working part of the army's forces. He rose through the ranks despite his personal problems with what he found in the army. When he was first deployed, he soon became dismayed at what he was required to do as a soldier. He had to fight his fellow Mekkhorsi that were rebelling against the empire or other warlords attempting to make their own claims outside the Emperor's rule. He watched as his comrades pillaged from the lands they fought in, and burn down villages and cities in the name of the emperor and the empire. He wanted a better way.

Behind the backs of his commanders, he would personally attempt to discipline the soldiers from engaging in immoral acts on the battlefield. Sometimes a fellow warrior would be found severely beaten or dead with wounds from unexplainable sources. Many disappeared. His role as an authoritative figure shielded him from investigation and he was loved by much of the men he served with so these strange discrepancies were ignored. 

Audovauld grew in the light of Lathras, the old god of life that many Mekkhorsi worshipped long ago, but he was introduced to the Pentaphany by a traveling missionary from the land now known as Khattiba, a desert region found southwest of Ravois within the region of Ashriq. Her name was Laiqa the Wanderer and he met her when he saved her from a zealous band of Lathrians that were attempting to stone her to death for spreading the word of the Five, the gods of the Pentaphany. After her rescue, they grew to know one another and she taught him of the epiphany of the Five, the claim that all gods were facets of five: Sothe, Liestra, Alar, Prythe, and Astres. He grew very interested in this new religion and especially of a god of just war, Alar. He asked Laiqa to baptize him in the name of the Five and he swore to uphold their will. He would see war become just.

War did not become just with the arrival of the Cold Death invasions, a grand set of invasions from the sea by liches controlling the undead from ages past. Audovauld, now an officer in archon Cyr's army, saw firsthand the havoc the undead unleashed upon the living. This was during a time of great instability in the empire as the War of Dying Flame, a civil war between three emperors that had claimed they were the true heirs of the empire, was growing to a close and the Mekkhorsi empire would never see itself with the same entrenchment of stable power ever again. The Cold Death was one of the final nails in the coffin of the Mekkhorsi Empire as the archons looked to themselves and did not help the south where the dead became hordes. Archon Cyr was similarly impotent due to not having the knowledge necessary to deal with this type of threat nor its scale. That left the army almost all alone with the archon having gone mad with stress in his castle.

Audovauld refused to see his land snuffed out. He rallied the army around a new banner bearing the symbol of Alar. At the end of a great booming speech made to inspire his men, holy energy erupted from the banner he raised a great gout of miraculous energy that speared into the sky. The banner could now be pointed and used as a weapon with great tendrils of energy flowing out of it and destroying all in their paths. It was said that even Audovauld was surprised when this occurred but he found it inspiring and knew that Alar was with him. He was ecstatic in the new power given to him by his god but kept his original ideal of a just war in his mind and never found himself overtaken by a sense of corruption. For a decade of war, Audovauld united the southern Ravoir into a fighting force under the banner of the Pentaphany and Alar. He would win many converts by his acts of valor and many would flock to him, including the first paladins that he found himself able to bless with his miracles. The warriors of Irenia, a region to the southeast of Ravois that would one day become Alaria, also joined him and they brought the word of the Five back to the region. For all of his miraculous and great work, he would be named the first Bellarch, the high priest of Alar. He saw the Cold Death beaten off and turned his work into helping the Pentaphany solidify itself as an institution.

His defense against the Cold Death would help him see his great epiphany that would emancipate mages in the eyes of the faithful of the Pentaphany. Before his epiphany, mages and magery were banned from being practiced by the Pentaphany and the previous Lathrian religion on pain of death. It came from a source that was not holy and it made up the essence of monsters thus it must have been sinful and evil. Magic-users would be exiled from the empire and put to death if they attempted to stay. The Arcanium, a realm ruled by great wizards boasting one of the greatest magic schools in the world located to the south of Mekkhor, came about during this time and it began as simply a nation of refugees and then became something more. In this war, he saw many mages come to the aid of Mekkhor. Many of these mages were those who would profess a love of the Five but could not due to the banning of their kind. In this war, he saw time and time again that even with the miracles he could summon that many more Ravoir would have died without the powers of the mages to send deadly spells down upon the undead, serve utilitarian purposes in sanitizing food, healing when the Liestrian clerics could not be around, and helping to raise fortifications and defenses much more quickly than the army would be able to do on its own. 

He became the defacto commander of the Pentaphany's forces and formed the first Council of Five Palatines with the Thanarch Jullian, the Vitarch Fikra, the Iustarch Ladron, and the Stellarch Kalesius. There they decided to spread the Pentarchy across Velas and laid down the foundations of thee modern temples. Audovauld and the first Pentarchy had nothing to do with the barring of women from the temple clergy aside from Liestrian and Astresian temples. That was created in later centuries with the entrenchment of the patriarchical feudal system.

He took part in the war against the worms and was a welcome presence. In -5879 ON, he ascended to Anathemahood becoming the Anathema of Battle to complement the god of war. He now acts behind the scenes and is able to empower his followers. His holy banner is found in the Palatine of Alar, and its power remains. It has been saved for use in another great world-threatening war.

A chapel dedicated to him exists in modern Lorcilly and many Alarian organizations and orders have been dedicated to him. Notably, the Firmament dedicated their organization to him but they also disregard his emancipatory epiphany.