Rama Shadowsbane
Anderi Heresiarch
Part of a contingent of pilgrams in the Holy Legion of Light, Rama and her companions left Warwick in the last decade of the seventh century on a mission - to bring Light to the Darkness. No place on Tarien was filled with Darkness like Sarnyan, an experiment in freedom that ended in chaos. Bright eyed and filled with idealism, the young missionary fell into despair at the plight of those trapped under the rule of cruel warlords and petty criminals. Worse, she found the path that her fellow missionaries took toward such oppressed people rooted in fundamentalism, not kindness. Missionaries would seek out those in the worst circumstances, offering them assistance in exchange for oaths to Anderi and the Legion. Those who refused to swear upon their souls were left to the mercies of the failed city-state or, in some cases, simply put to the sword as a mercy.Rama insisted that Anderi wanted them to offer help to all, regardless of their faith. It would "show them the light" rather than "blinding them with it." Such blasphemy was not tolerated by the mission's leadership and Rama found herself expelled and left all alone in the lawless streets of the city. She fled south, ahead of a mob blaming her for some of the mission's more forceful conversions before becoming trapped in driving winter storm that blew of the Eldorian Sea. Miles from any sanctuary, her fingers and toes blue and white with frostbite, she prayed to the Lord of Light for salvation. Anderi provided, giving Rama a small white flame that burned without fuel or smoke. Holding it in her hands, she warmed herself enough to complete the journey south to Pendril where she collapsed in a field in the northern part of the city.
Exonerated by her god, she never returned to Warwick or the Holy Legion, working instead with leadership in Pendril to build a temple to the Lord of Light to house the flame. The Hall of the Unshrouded Flame, a cathedral, in the northern part of the city, was completed some three decades later. Rama died several years later, never again having walked without a limp - her toes had been amputated after her bout of frostbite - though the flame still burns in the temple today.