One unfortunate day, Edvard woke up wearing a suit in an opened, shoddy casket next to an unearthed grave. This day marked the beginning of life as he knew it. Already an adult, he had no recollection of his name, possessing only fuzzy images of his life: being hungry and cold in the winter, losing his arm due to factory work, and a vague impression of a disfigured, red-eyed woman named Shele, were the only things he remembered. However, despite these strange recollections, he still had his arm, with the rest of his body being oddly well kept and nourished despite his supposed existence as a pauper.
Stumbling out of the abandoned graveyard and into a nearby town, his clean, ironed clothes and perfect posture immediately grabbed the attention of the residents. He was eventually brought before the mayor of the town, Bastien, who listened to Edvard's tale of confusing circumstances and memory loss. Bastien soon concluded that Edvard had been involved in some unknown freak accident and was most likely the son of an influential noble somewhere in the Vesperlands. With his thoughts on the possible rewards of favour and money he would receive, Bastien agreed to house Edvard for the time being, hoping someone would come forth and claim their lost heir soon.
Edvard turned out to be an extremely insatiable reader, finishing all the books in Bastien's study within the month. He was determined to figure out who he was and spent much of his time analysing both local and national history. It would be through these endeavours that he named himself, taking after another Edvard in the distant past who had undergone amnesia and ended up as a famous poet. Of course, his voracity didn't end there: he soon found himself advising Bastien on political matters and acting as a mediator during several negotiations with larger towns, gaining notoriety as a cunning and well-educated statesman.
Questions soon began to pop up admist the nobles, though, especially when nobody could prove that Edvard was, indeed, a noble of some renown. A few tried to claim him as their long lost son, but Edvard quickly disproved those claims, as they were unable to provide Shele's name in any of their accounts. Some rumours even started to spread that he was a secret child, the son of a noble's illicit affair that had been lost to time.
Eventually, Edvard returned to the inconspicuous graveyard to search for more clues. It was there that he found a letter, written on aged parchment in the blackest ink he had ever seen: Dear reader, son of Shele Larkant: what would you be willing to give to know who you are? Underneath that cryptic header, the writer gave Edvard a map and instructions to enter a deserted mansion in the middle of a heavily forested area. With this being his only lead in years of searching, Edvard decided to comply, embarking in the dead of night a day later to find his answers.
He didn't expect a complete conclusion to his tale, but even moreso, Edvard definitely did not expect to be greeted in the mansion's dining hall by the god of the Vesperlands, Kara. Over a lengthy dinner full of idle pleasantries, Kara eventually offered to reveal Edvard's past to him in full, at the price of his sworn loyalty. At first, Edvard assumed this was a trap: knowing the lavish life some halflings lead under Kara's reign, he felt as if there had to be something more, an ulterior motive or hidden ploy. After all, the deal sounded too good to be true. However, once the dinner ended and Kara was about to take his leave, Edvard found himself grasping the opportunity in an act of desperation, afraid that he'd never have another chance to know what happened to him.
And That was how the story of Edvard Iorskaf, a man left for dead by his convining uncle, but saved by his mother's knowledge of forbidden magics, ended. His father, the late Count Zachary Jemfair, had his own portraits and documents burned after his brother's family, the Steons, took his place. Ruthless as they were, the Steons left no trace of Zachary Jemfair's existence, erasing his entire bloodline's right to succession. Shele, Jemfair's favourite fortune teller and a long-suspected practitioner of forbidden arts, was soon hunted down and executed for treason as well. In the aftermath, Edvard had been snuck out of the manor by a few loyal to the former Count, but soon found the ones he could trust mysteriously dead or vanished. As an orphaned young adult, Edvard kept his head low and worked what jobs he could, a far cry from his previous life of luxury. After he lost his arm in the meat processing factory, he soon died from injury and infection. But the enchantment his mother had cast on him to ensure the survival of her husband's line would not allow such a fate.
Edvard would wake up decades later, his body restored by dark magics, and that was supposed to be the end of it all. He fulfilled his promise to Kara and became a soldier in his army, gradually advancing the ranks and eventually becoming the High General of the Vesper. Yet even as he fought for a world united under Kara's rule, a world promised to be one of peace and prosperity, Shele's haunting face still plagued his dreams, her crimson eyes filled with some kind of fearful pleading. Something was wrong, still. That looming feeling seemed to be the only thing certain in this labyrinthine new world, and as it turned out, Edvard's story, in fact, was only about to start.