Victorian Sorcerer - Ernest Dodd

[Medium Sized Model - 25mm Base]

[Presupported with LYS files in 32mm & 75mm Scale]

Coming from humble beginnings, Ernest had always hoped he could join an organisation like the Grimgate Order Force as a child, in a bid to clean up the streets and bring safety to his home. His gift as a Breath Wielder saw him inducted instead as a Dark Inquisitor, and from there he became disillusioned with his life goal. The Inquisitors were not the saviours he was led to believe as a child: they were the oppressors, those who kept the status quo of poverty rife in Baldur’s slums, removing those who would wield magic to help the unfortunate. Now, after faking his death and leaving the order, he has fallen in with The Underkeepers, an organisation who challenges his sense of justice, but tempers their ill deeds with their genuine love of Baldur and wish to uplift the downtrodden.

An ex-Inquisitor whose disillusionment with his order led him to abandon his ideals, and join those whom he had previously hunted. Ernest was raised in the criss-crossing alleys of Trader’s Respite, a bustling commercial district just outside Grimgate’s southwall. His father was a potter, one who made his living at the markets, supporting a family of six in doing so. Whilst the coin was just enough to scrape by, it meant that any mishaps could see the family without food for several days, whether it be a storm shutting the markets down or a delinquent stealing the day’s earnings. The latter, his father would often claim, was often committed by miscreants wielding arcane magic to snatch it unnoticed, or cloak themselves in invisibility to do so.

On one such occasion, his father reported the crime to the Inquisitors, who found the culprit alongside a swathe of stolen belongings. The culprit was summarily executed by a firing squad, Ernest’s father forcing his children to watch. The memory had stayed with the young boy ever since, though also instilled a sense of gratitude and admiration to the Inquisitors. It thus inspired him to become a peacekeeper like them, though he did not believe he held the physical nor mental prowess to become an Inquisitor, instead aiming lower with the Grimgate Order Force. However, during his training, the young Ernest was discovered to have latent arcane abilities, manifesting during a near-death experience. Rather than send him to the gallows, Ernest was mysteriously removed from the training squad, who thought his death would follow surely after. Instead, he was inducted into the Inquisitors, beginning his training as a Dark Inquisitor, those whose identities were kept a secret, seldom removed their helms and were only used in secretive operations where no one would live to spread word of magic wielding Inquisitors.

In the earliest days, Ernest was thrilled by the prospect of being in such an elite unit. But as time went on, he began to realise his foes were seldom the dark mages and warlocks he was led to believe. Often they were illegal magic and charm shops, apothecaries and unlicensed healers or soothsayers. Any time these were encountered, he and his colleagues were forced to cut them down. While there were still times where his mettle was tested, battlemages and dark cults were few and far between the more common chaff of unthreatening charlatans and conjurers. Eventually, he came to see himself not as a keeper of peace, but a tool of oppression, one ultimately controlled by the Court Mages of Baldur’s nobles. It was the ramblings of a powdered up madman who had opened his eyes, telling him that the Inquisitors were devised by the Crown to ensure the only people with magic were those afforded the privilege of court wizards, and the rest would be killed to even try.

Months later Ernest would desert in the middle of a deadly raid in Grimgate’s outskirts, faking his death. Knowing the plight of the Underkeepers, having grown up within their influence, he chose to join them instead: one of the few spellcasters in the organisation. Now with hopes of liberation, he aims to usher in a new age of peace for Baldur should they succeed, though blood must be spilled before peace can flourish.