Introduce Yourself

Timothy the Knight

In the far north lie the cold swamplands, sometimes called the ”the end of the lands”, their winters long and harsh, their summers short but sweet, and home to many small kingdoms and creatures hardy enough to survive the freezing climate. Of these marshes few outsiders know, although they may be the last bastion of hope against an encroaching darkness.

In ancient times, foul horrors from beyond the grave launched countless invasions into these lands, bringing with them only misery and death. Little by little, they conquered the marshlands, and may very well have brought the entire land under their dark influence, were it not for an intervention by fate.

From seemingly out of nowhere appeared creatures of purity and light, slender but powerful, fierce yet gentle, with the bodies of horses, tails of lions, hooves of goats and horns of the purest substance, capable of healing even the most grievous of wounds and curing the vilest of diseases, but also of destruction of the impure and unholy. These creatures are today known as ”unicorns”.

Roused by the sight of these holy beings, a champion arose form the ranks of the mortal men to lead this great and mighty host against the hordes of foul darkness and vile corruption. They cut through the unclean creatures like the burning dawn through the blackness of the night, healing the just and smiting the wicked of the lands, and after many a great battle, sent the lord of the unliving running to whatever unholy pits which saw his spawning.

After the lands were once again as they had been since the dawn of time, the unicorns departed for their homelands somewhere far away. The champion, vowing to keep the unholy hordes at bay, founded the knightly order of the unicorn, named after the symbol of the liberation of the land. These knights have kept their oath to keep the lands safe to this day, even long after the story of the liberation faded into legend and the unicorns had become nothing but creatures of myth and fairytales.

But mortal men are easily brought to the side of darkness and corruption when they forget their past glory...

The tale of Timothy the knight begins as he is born to the family of the champion of ancient times, direct descendants of this mighty figure. His father is the grandmaster of the order of the unicorn, as was his father, and his father's father before him, as has been tradition of the order for countless generations. Timothy was brought up as a knight should, righting the wrongs and preserving the rights of the world.

Timothy was only a young lad when disaster struck, as his father and several of his closest companions were killed by an unusually large group of bandits, and the rest of the grandmaster's loyal knights perished under mysterious circumstances, and strange diseases. Even Timothy was targeted by an assassin, but he managed to survive a grueling battle in his bedroom long enough for the guards to arrive to help and send the interloper running.

These events sent shockwaves throughout the knighthood, as everyone grieved the loss of so many noble souls. According to tradition, Timothy was to assume the role of grandmaster, but the lord of another house protested this quite vocally, claiming Timothy to be too young to take on such responsibilities, and as nearly all higher- ranking knights who were loyal to the late grandmaster were no longer there to support Timothy's claim, the rival lord gathered the knights behind him, and was made the new grandmaster.

In the following years, Timothy was knighted and assumed the role of a knight-errant, but found that even his most valiant efforts were not bringing him much renown among the order's high council, even though many of the younger knights saw his valour and kindness as an example of what all true knights should look up to. No matter what Timothy tried, the council saw no reason to promote him from his low rank, or even grant him any fief larger than a small manor. The council started to become more and more reclusive, only addressing issues that were in its own interest, and no longer paid heed to the oath to protect the borders from the unholy horrors of the unliving.

And the apathy of the knighthood only deepend when the raids of the dark hordes started to strike deeper and deeper into the marshy lands, and when finally the unholy legions started their march of death across the land, the council barely lifted a finger in response, only sending out small bands to meet the full brunt of the corrupting horde, which only served to swell their foul ranks with fresh corpses.

Timothy was enraged at this inactivity in the face of their ancestral enemy, and left the order's citadel after a furious display of disrespect towards the secluded council, riding into the forests made deceptively beautiful by the winds of autumn, along with several of the knights who agreed with his anger. The council saw fit to denounce all who left the fortress following this ”traitor”. In the following months Timothy gathered as many soldiers as he could for the battles ahead. Unfortunately he could not waste his time in saving the villages suffering in the hands of bandits or the unholy legion's vanguards, nor could he spare troops to defend them, and this greatly troubled him, making him feel inadequate for his status.

When winter's first snow started to fall, a messenger arrived to Timothy's camp, bringing grave news. The unholy legion had lain siege to the citadel, but only after the grandmaster had left with a large portion of the garrison on some ”important buisness” and hadn't returned even though it's clear that he received news of what had transpired. Immediately Timothy gathered his troops and marched faster than was possible, forcing his men to the brink of collapse every day, but arrived only to see the once-glorious fortress broken and burning. His army was exhausted, and would refuse to take a single step forward or backward.

The melancholy army camped on a hill overlooking the tragic scene, and for the entire night, Timothy could not tear his gaze away from the harrowing sight of mighty towers now toppled to the ground and great halls now collapsed under their former magnificence. He felt, for the first time in years, hopeless and desperate. The last time he had felt such despair was during the death of his father, and memories of those sad days filled his already weary mind with even more grief and suffering.

As dawn broke the dark legions had finished their plundering and began to march again. However, they met the mighty banner of the order's founding father flying high and the army of the great hero's descendant marching against them.

It was then that Timothy reeled back at a sight that brought into his mind the horror not even the most ancient and terrible creature of evil could inspire. The grandmaster of the order, still fully alive and breathing, rode with the ancient lord of the unliving. Horror turned to surprise and surprise into terrible fury, as he ordered his small band to charge against the vast legions of darkness.

His men, however, were still weary and in low spirits and, due to the chaos of the sudden charge, were left disorganized and were mercilessly cut down. Although Timothy fought with such fury and might that one may have believed him possessed by a berserk demon, cutting down hundreds of the unliving fiends, he could do naught when a lucky blow robbed him of consciousness.

He woke up in a very uncomfortable gibbet, hanging from a cart of corpses filled with the bodies of his fellow knights. The grandmaster was there, smiling wickedly, and gloating how he had made a pact with the lord of the unliving, orchestrated the deaths of his father and his cadre of knights, and brought about the order's downfall form within itself, all in exchange for a ”humble reward” of half the land after it's conquest. The grandmaster departed, cackling in broken tones, leaving Timothy to rot in his confined cell.

For weeks he starved in that cage, loosing his strength and will to live. Just as he was about to abandon all hope, he fell into a deep sleep. He dreamed of a mystical and serene forest, and walking through it, he found a unicorn, the very symbol of the order that was his birthright and that now lay in ruins, betrayed and humiliated. She spoke to him; ”Descendant of the champion of mortal flesh, do not despair, for as long as a single beacon of hope remains, the darkness has no chance to extinguish the flame of this world. Thou art that beacon. Seek thou out the meadows of my kin and tell them of thine plight, and they would have naught 'gainst thine worthy cause.”

Just as suddenly he had fallen asleep he woke up to the sounds of battle. The last remnants of the knights were making a valiant but futile attempt to attack the unholy legion. Suddenly, one of them crashed into the cart, sending the gibbet hurtling to the ground, the impact breaking the rusty metal. Without a second thought, Timothy jumped into the saddle of his unfortunate rescuer, who now lay in the snow pierced by several arrows, and rode away from his captors.

Timothy escaped from the realm, avoiding the enemy's patrols and bandit groups. Traveling towards warmer lands, and though leaving his homelands behind, he vowed to return once he had found the unicorns and raised an army with which to take back his ancestral home from the corrupted clutches of the unliving and the traitorous grandmaster. With grim determination, he rode onwards to an uncertain future and whatever awaited him beyond the horizon, and the rising dawn.