Adarok

A Face in the Crowd
Adarok was an ancient human, who lived many years before the current age of Alathra. By trade he was a mariner, though many of his fellow seafarers would argue that cheating at cards was his true calling. While known for trickery and deceit, the true power of his silver tongue wasn't tested until he met with the Lady of Death herself. Through a combination of luck and skill, he managed to both save his life, and seal his fate, at the same time. Now known as little more than a broken spirit bound to the Blessed Dagger, Adarok was, for a period of time, something far greater.

A God based on Lies
It was mariners like Adarok who made up the majority of the victims taken by the Sisters of Death... And he was no different. A series of unfortunate events lead to an odd meeting in an alleyway, and the Blessed Dagger near to being pressed into his heart. With the greatest gamble he'd ever made, not only his life, but his very soul on the line, he managed to convince her that he was in fact looking for her. He could tell she was more than a mortal assailant from her strength and the power of that dagger, and so Adarok proclaimed that he was the very god who had bestowed her power onto her, and by sheer chance, convinced her that her blessed dagger was a creation of his own hand-- guessing of its origination and dreams of fishing as he glanced at the happenings at the dock nearby. The Lady of Death not only spared him, but began to kill in his name, each new life fed to the dagger empowering him as it had her.

Reaping what was Sown
Adarok's lies would not sustain him forever. As his power grew, so too did the suspicion of both the Lady of Death and her Sisters of Death. Why should they need to empower a god, if he truly was the god who had given them their power? Distrust grew, and eventually, the Lady of Death took his life as she had so many others... But bolstered by the dagger, he didn't truly die. Instead, his soul became bound to the artifact to which he was inherently tied, waiting for the next time a mortal dared to take hold of the dagger.

Return to the Land of the Living
Eventually, Adarok's long slumber would end, when an adventurer would find the Waystone, open the gate between worlds, and take the remains of the Dagger from the Boat of the Other Side. The curse of the dagger took the adventurer's life, but this was of little consequence to Adarok, as his spirit possessed the corpse of the man. While still trapped on the Other Side for a time, Thaeorn fell to the whims of the dagger, and pulled the wannabe god into the land of the living. Adarok revealed to the old barkeep that he couldn't set foot on land, that his curse bound him to the sea, and that he planned to return the souls of others like him to the world of the living aswell. Time will tell just how this eventual goal unfolds... For now, we will have to wait and see.



Trivia

 * Adarok was originally an NPC written to be the backstory premise behind an artifact. However, when TheWaffleIron found the artifact in question, he adopted the character as his own, justifying the change as his own nameless character being killed and then possessed by the spirit of Adarok which had just been freed from the Hilt of the Blessed Dagger.
 * Adarok is known for lies, yet countless rumors tell of his hoards of netherrite and gold from beyond the realm of the living, despite not even having a town to call home.
 * The Hilt of the Blessed Dagger seems to be the only soulbound artifact, and only accursed artifact to be discovered yet.