Appearance

Special abilities

Daggoth has managed to draw the attention of something dark and evil from the other side of the veil and though unsure of the exact origin of this patron, Daggoth knows that it has its own plans for him. The entity has gifted Daggoth with some extraordinary skills, but has asked nothing in return yet.

Mentality

Personal history

Daggoth never met his parents. His earliest memories are within the caves under the Wind Castle, the seat of power of the Sanguine Order. As far as he remembers, he was always a scrawny, small-framed child, with bruised or bleeding knees, shins and elbows, undistinguished from the other orphans of the Sanguine Order.

Education

The training in the Sanguine Order was brutal for all the children, all year long, in rain or snow or scorching sun. Waking up before sunrise, they were run to the ground during the day, training and doing chores, learning to fight with hand, tooth or nail, bombarded with information about monsters, stories about ghosts, details about poisons and potions and anything else the Sanguine Order's trainers deemed necessary. And the dread of the coming night, when three children would be singled out by the trainers for unsatisfactory performance and would be left without food, an incentive to perform better the next day.
 
Not all children survived. The ones that grew into young men, the Sanguine Order prepared them to fight unnatural creatures and terrible monsters for money, or search in faraway lands, lost ruins and moldy libraries for magical artifacts, arcane relics and apocryphal knowledge.

Employment

Daggoth never connected with any of the other orphans and later the men of the Sanguine Order. One reason for that is that the Sanguine Order's trainers promoted antagonism among the children. The same principles are followed among its members, as the top of the hierarchy believes strongly in dividing and conquering. This has made him prefer loneliness and avoid forming strong relations with others in his life. Similarly, it has made him antagonistic and he expects others to try to take advantage of him, as he does to them. Later on, with the manifestation of his powers, he made a point of being distant, to keep his secret safe. Although he has no love for the Sanguine Order, he has seen what happens to “apostates” that have tried to run away and not return after their tasks. This has made him generally dislike authority, but he realizes that it is not worth openly fighting it unless one is certain he can topple it. Thus he prefers to slowly undermine it till the authority either clumbles on its own or loses its grasp of him. So for the time, he bids his time and tries to find a way to break free from the grasp of the Order, before the next mission gets him killed or his handler decides he has become too independent.

Mental Trauma

Daggoth is skilled in combat, but also draws power from a different source. On the first mission that the Sanguine Order sent him, along with two other young men, Anton and Jualgo, they were to investigate rumors of a ghostly presence in a cave system near a small mining town called Aquerdeen. The trio reached the town in the middle of a heavy storm, which had been going on for a week. They asked around the townsfolk but didn't get any coherent information: talk of shadowy images, a feeling of dread, men entering the caves never to return or return with a mind broken, blabbering incoherent nonsense. And over everything else, a storm that seemed to keep going without end. The three young men entered the cave prepared to fight a ghost, but what they encountered didn't seem to have any of the properties of a spirit. Deep in the caves they encountered a black, humanoid form, twisted and warped, that seemed to be made out of smoke. Their weapons either went through it as if it wasn't there, or shattered in contact; smoke tendrils extended from the entity like huge grasping limbs and at their touch, cold and lightning raked the bodies of the lads and shrieking terror filled their minds. They attempted to escape from the caves, but the two others died as the creature came after them. Daggoth barely made it out of the cave and out into the storm. Looking back, in the flash of the lightning, he saw the horrible thing hover like a bad dream at the entrance of the cave, emitting a sense of dread and contempt. Halfway back to the town Daggoth collapsed unconscious to the mud and was later found by some townsfolk harvesting lumber. He was awakened two days later in the town's inn by the rays of bright sunshine. The storm had dissipated as he slept and some brave men of the town had ventured into the caves to find them perfectly safe. To the townspeople, whatever the three men had done, had destroyed the ghost haunting the area.
 
Although he didn't know what exactly had happened, Daggoth was happy to hear that the mission had been successful, despite the deaths of his companions. He left that same day to return to the Wind Castle and report. The first night on the road, alone and hidden out of sight, Daggoth was visited in his dreams for the first time by a nightmare that would become prevalent. In the first hour of sleep, the black form would appear in a black field of dead plants and brittle bones, with shadowy wisps of smoke reaching towards Daggoth and trying to grasp him, while the horrible sound of a loud, wheezing, gasping breath filling the air all around him. Right as the wisps reached Daggoth’s form, he awakened.
 
Daggoth didn't sleep that night, and the next night the nightmare visited him again. The nightmares would continue in the future, on random nights, waking him up shouting and his heart beating hard, his breath heavy and fast. He finally made it back to the Sanguine Order, but on the way he had decided to omit certain facts of his trip. He told no one of the nightmares, or of the strange powers that seemed to manifest when he was in great need, lightning sparking from his spilled blood and dark energy emanating from his hands. His superiors were partially pleased with the success, even though he hadn't been able to gather any useful information. But as they continued to send him to missions and his hidden powers helped him succeed, they came to appreciate his effectiveness.

Known Languages

Common, Celestial

Personality

Motivation

With little loyalty to a cult that raised him to fight and die, Daggoth seeks to gain power in order to survive. Daggoth is well-built, with unkempt hair and a pearl earring on his left ear. There is a raven tattoo on his right cheek. He has a pencil mustache and a goatee and usually wears leather armor and traveling clothes. He has a notable accent derived from his tutor of common back in the Wind Castle. He spends as much time as he can eating and drinking merrily, because he knows that the life the Sanguine Order has chosen for him can not be a long one. His training with the Sanguine Order has affected his character in other ways as well: his interests lie in old books that regale tales of the past, especially traditions lost to time, or apocryphal stories about regions, creatures and phenomena. He carries with him an iron pendant, in the shape of the twisted, warped form of the creature that haunts his dreams, that he had forged for him by an artisan dwarven blacksmith. He hopes that somehow, by giving a material form to his nightmare, he can hold it at bay.

Personality Quirks

Nightmares

Social

Contacts & Relations

The Sanguine Order