[I] They saw a fire in the dark night's sky, [I]
[I] He would be there when they arrived. [I]
[I] If there's a pyre in the afterlife, [I]
[i} He'll be there again to set it alight... [I]
- Excerpt from "A Hymn For Murderers", author unknown.

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Xerius Sevastian is a name very few have not heard, but it is most notorious in the arcane community. To those who don't know him, which are most, he is the "Shadow in the Flames", the shinobi pyromancer who hunts rogue witches and wizards relentlessly. He is the one who took the left hand of Prince Pyren of Gellai in front of his father, the King of Lon, and walked away unpunished. He is the one who burned the Temple of the Northern Arcanists to the ground and marked all of it's members with deep burns for the crime of planning a genocide. He is the one who defeated the Kenu'Raan circle's High Pyromancer with just one move. But there is far more to this unique red kobold, and his phoenix-fire familiar, than the songs and stories about him that echo across war-torn Iyr.

The event that set Xerius on his path to become the most powerful pyromancer in over a century was one he did not take by choice. Raised in a dangerous zealous community of kobold cultists, who wished to see thier race return to the sleeping world to once again serve the Dragon Gods, the small kobold was cursed with scales the color of dragonfire, a sign to his fanatic parents and the cult's high priest that he was to be the one who would lead thier crusade. He was kept sequestered from the other children, locked in a small temple, forced to recite religious text after religious text, his back cut by sharp sacrificial knives so that his "holy blood" could be collected for ritualistic events.

Finally, one his 8th birthday, he was dragged out of his tiny room which had been the only thing he'd known, out into the sunlight, and placed naked on a stone altar. There, as his mother and father held him down, the priest took a phoenix feather, something so exceedingly rare that nations had fought and died over them, dipped it in the kobolds stored blood, and traced it down Xerius' back, from spine to tail-tip, calling upon the fire goddess Akai to breathe her strength into him so that he may become a demi-god, a vassal of immortal dragonfire to purify the countless mortal races who had wronged the kobold people for so many centuries.

Akai heard this prayer, but upon seeing what had been done to this child, was merely enraged. Through Xerius, Akai cast out a great fire, a gargantuan storm of impossibly hot fire that turned all it touched to ash. Xerius awoke to an apocalyptic scene, the town flattened, burning, around him snowed the ashes of the village he'd been raised in. Inside his body, he could feel... heat. Napalm, running through his veins. A bonfire raging in his heart. It was all too much for the poor young kobold, and on that ash-covered altar, now scorched black, he curled up and began to cry, alone and helpless.

Akai, while quick to enrage, was a motherly figure with a deep and unending fondness for the young. Seeing what she had done to the poor boy in his moment of blinding anger caused a single tear to roll down her face, which she let drop into the ash beside Xerius. From the tear, the ash was rekindled into fire, and from that living fire rose a small, gentle phoenix. The phoenix comforted the kobold, and the two forged an instant bond. Xerius named his new friend Killi, or "hearth" in the kobold language, and together the two set off, under Akai's silent but guiding eye, to start a new life.

Eventually, Xerius would find himself at the doorstop of a Pyromancy school in the proud Loycian territory of Lirrick, in the town of Ferona. The War of the Wildfires was still raging around him, though this he did not know, and the school was practically empty, all of it's mages of fighting age and skill sent to aid the war effort against the invading Holy Kingdom of Bascendanta. One of the Masters in the school, a kind, gentle raccoon by the name of Winzy, took one of look at the lonely, hungry, and wearly kobold, and took him in without a second thought. The kobold was given his own room, well fed, well groomed and well clothed, and was inducted at the mostly abandoned schools only student.

Here, Xerius learned that he was more than just a regular pyromancer now. He was touched by Akai, given a natural command over flame no mortal could achieve without divine intervention. He rushed through the lessons with shocking speed, both impressing and concerning Master Winzy. Unfortunately, with very few people to talk to and a war-front barely ten miles away, the kobolds psychological damage never recovered fully. He was extremely reserved and quiet. He liked to spend much if his time in hidden nooks and crannies of the school where no one could find or reach him. The only person he'd allow to touch him was Winzy, and often downright refused to be drawn into social situations. When they went into town he raised his hood over his face and kept as much distance as possible from others, but after a couple of years of this, with only minor improvements, Winzy got an idea.

With the war approaching the town that the old Pyromancy School was situated, it was time to get the young and still sensitive Xerius away from the conflict. Seeing the possibility in the kobold's uncanny ability to hide even in plain sight, he sent him to Serosi, home of the snake clans of Arryn, and enrolled him in one of it's most prestigious shinobi colleges. While facing prejudice and mockery at first, Xerius' talent for the silent, deadly arts of the shinobi, paired with the intimidation of his vast pyromancy skills, he soon earned his place among the Serosi locals. As he climbed to the top of his class, impressing all of his teachers and mentors, they stopped seeing him as a weak-willed kobold, and more as a force of nature. He had been powerful before with just his fire magic, but now he would be unstoppable.

After a further three long years of training, during which Arryn would enter the war themselves against both Lon and Farron, Xerius graduated with the highest honors, and officially completed his transformation from a scared, alone child to a master shinobi pyromancer. Now it was time for all the others to cower and shuffle away from him, the time he'd spent among his peers instilling in him a strong confidence in himself and his own abilities, though he was very careful to avoid hubris. However, the kobold was still not healed in the way his surrogate father would have hoped. He was cold now, cautious, untrusting, and calculating. He found little joy in the social activities those around him partook in, and found very little reason to ever smile to relax. In his eyes, as a kobold, he wasn't permitted such luxuries around the other species that looked down upon his race so readily. As much as he despised the cult that had raised him, it was impossible not to see the way his people were treated in most of the world.

Donning his now infamous outfit, a shinobis black clothing hidden underneath a classic, master-mages robe, Xerius returned to Winzy, thankful to find the town and school untouched by the war thus far, as the tides had been turned heavily against Bascendanta by now. His adoptive father was pleased to have him back, and convinced the kobold to take a few months to relax and try to behave like a normal 18 year old boy, as he was now. This, unfortunately, was doomed to fail, as while Xerius was sitting in a local tavern, he overheard three acolytes from a nearby geomancers school planning to destroy the college together by creating a massive sinkhole underneath it, theorizing they could blame it on Bascendantan terrorists. Xerius wasn't about to let them destroy his true home and the livelihood of his father, so he decided it was time to put the skills to use.

Early that night, as the sun finally sank over the horizon and the moon began to rise in the sky, Xerius approached the school of geomancy and demanded the three acolytes be punished. When the dean of the school brought them forth, they obviously denied the accusations. When it was obvious the dean would believe them over some kobold, one of the acolytes smirked victoriously at Xerius. The pyromancer smiled back coldly, then engulfed the student in fire. He stuck the door shut with a thrown kunai and forced the dean and other two students to watch as the poor geomancer burned to death, running hopelessly around the room until the kobold finally put him out of his misery with a slash to the throat. Naturally, the other two students immediately admitted to what they planned to do and begged for merct, on thier knees, to the kobold. Xerius granted it, so long as the Dean promised to remove them from the school, which he did.

In a nicer tale, this would have been the end of it. But as it happened, the dean was not a forgiving man, and one night while Winzy and Xerius were eating dinner at a nearby inn, the Geomancer and a great portion of his students destroyed the rival school, killing twenty and injuring many, many more. Winzy begged Xerius not to exact revenge, to just let the Kenu'Raan come down and handle the situation, but it was too late. Xerius arrived back at the school of geomancy to find its inhabitants had erected a powerful stone wall around it, and were prepared for a siege. The dean mocked Xerius, telling him the Kenu'Raan would never side with him or his surrogate father since he drew first blood. However, all Xerius could see was that the geomancers had erected an oven around themselves, and all he needed to do was light the match.

It was almost painfully easy. A little meditation, remembering the layout and look of the building hiding in that clay and rock shell. A single spark of Akai's fire, which was something wholly different from regular mortal fire, something very very few pyromancers had control of, and it was over. The immortal flame spread across the school, resisting all attempts to put it out, from buckets of water to pounds of dirt. Xerius stood in front of the shell as a crowd gathered around him, listening to the growing screams from inside that dome of earth. By the time the survivors began fleeing the building, they were too disorganized and untrained to remove the dome. In a panic, one teacher tried to simple explode it outwards, only to have it crumble in and crush them all. During this event, no one dared to try and help them, and no one dared to even approach Xerius. From this night, Xerius would acquire two things: The title "Crucifier of Ferona" and a VIP invitation to the Witch Hunters Guild in Azerick.

The moment the kobold stepped foot into the guild, he knew he'd found his calling. He fit into the crowd of this place like no other, and even began opening up. Their unified hatred of reckless and rogue mages, and a fierce determination to protect the weak, made for a atmosphere of vigilantism and raw justice that rang strongly with him. It was also here that the shinobi pyromancer would meet Lucatiel Ailas, a brightly colored jackal girl who happened to be very similar to him in many ways, as she herself was a powerful venamancer and ranger. The two would become extremely close, in every sense but a romantic one, and eventually team up after the end of the War of the Wildfires, exacting terrible justice to rogue arcane-users across the continent, watching as the old great arcane guilds, including the coveted Kenu'Raan Circle, lost thier grip on thier people and began to crumble.

With a new and volatile Iyr licking its wounds after the greatest conflict ever seen on the continent, Xerius has found there is much work to be done for people like him. Only 20, the kobold was more famous than most mages could ever dream of being, and he had only just begun...

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WOW THAT GOT OUT OF HAND. I had way too much fun writing the backstory for this guy wow XD
Well, here is Xerius, one of the main protagonists of my fantasy world, in the flesh and blood as it were, and one of my favorite characters lore wise that I've ever made! Hope you guys find him as interesting as i do!

Art by the ever amazing  Sashxx
Xerius belongs to meeee

ENJOY!