Original:
Galthen's Record of the Adaean
Here is what I wrote down as an official matter concerning the Order of the Stag and the order alone after accepting an invite from Eldoran the Younger, who I helped in a "delicate" matter of his own. Under oath never to disclose any of the events that lead to the founding of the order or dealt with the heritage to the outside world, he was eager for me to formulate a sort of chronicle about the Etzel lineage.
The house of Etzel, a noble family of knights once under the rule of King Xenom of Tibia, had a bastard sibling. Cadwgan Etzel, the father of Scarlet, Oberon and Kesar, was known for his heated temperament, harsh methods and strong opinion. Regular folk often calling him Cadwgan the Mad, or "Mad Cad". His campaigns were bloody but successful. The glory of the Etzel name, prevailing in battle and feared by its enemies earned him high praise from even the king. Not all of his endeavors were of fortunate consequences, however. Leaving to explore strange and foreign countries for months on end, he neglected his wife, Ansegild, who he often referred to as a necessary means to an end, a mere nuisance and a trophy, depending on his current mood and company. In his hubris, he dallied with fair maidens all over his sphere of influence which spanned vast landholdings and townships during Xenom's reign. One of his adventures lead to a son, Eldoran, the fourth child he sired and the youngest of the house of Etzel. As a secret well-kept, he was to be brought up by his mother and stayed with her, hidden away like spoils of war, property of the venerable house of Etzel.
Alas, when a local uprising ravaged the very tracts of land he once conquered, forcibly subjugating its native inhabitants, the village of Eldoran's mother, Ada, was ransacked. Raiders destroyed his birthplace and left him an orphan amidst the turmoil of civil war. Cadwgan crushed the bloody uprising, unforgiving and with brutality. Unable to undo what has happened, he stood helpless and furious atop a mountain of the broken pieces of his turbulent past. Griefing and shattered he consigns his youngest to the care of a young family owning a farmstead in the outskirts of Carlin, closer to his watch and safely tucked away from war.
Cadwgan had a brash personality but he loved his children all the same. And Eldoran, whilst growing up far away from home and the lofty spoils of nobility, was visited by his father time and time again, watching his coming to age in disguise and protecting his life with his own until he perished before the boy saw his twentieth year.
As the son of poor but honest foster parents out in the Carlin surroundings he was brought up to labour hard and work the fields proper. Bringing in the meagre crop to allow for every day's necessities gave him a good sense of true values in life as well as the hardship, the common man has to endure. From time to time and as often as he could, his father visited the family, acting as a distant relative. A friendly uncle, taking his nephew under his wing, he taught Eldoran the Etzel ways, educated him and trained him to foster his talents. Equally hot-tempered but steadily calmed by his kind heart, his blood was heated by the drive of his father and cooled by the benevolence of his late mother.
With the death of Cadwgan, it became increasingly difficult to keep Eldoran part of the farmstead. As he reached his twenty-first year, without the care and support of his real father, his foster parents revealed his true identity. Naturally, being a well-educated young man with a fierce heart, he struggled with the truth. Despising his true heritage, he felt no love for the man who left him alone and despite all his power was not able to protect his mother. Leaving her and her home to the caprice of the angry mob, riled up by the very actions of the noble knight who he is now bound to by line of blood.
You read the following.