Felthis ap Jerran (NG, risen Ultroloth)
Felthis is the new Philosopher King of Ecstasy.
Source: Dragon #351
Author's notes: The author (Todd Stewart) had this to say about the character:
"Some additional flavor text regarding his reasons for being there, and
his view of his own existance got cut. Plus, if you want some more
background on the character, I can provide it. He's in the gatetown of
Ecstasy in his current role as something of pennance, not that he truly
requires it to be accepted by Elysium, but because he desires it.
Eventually when he feels enough time has passed and he has done enough
good, he'll take that step into Elysium and fully shed the last
vestiges of his former existance.
"Consider him an abberation, an abomination to his own kind who turned
away from evil because of a single flaw, a single fragment of good that
survived intact somehow within his metaphysical being through all of
his various forms and tenures in each caste in the 'loth heirarchy.
When he was first created as a mezzoloth, belched forth from the Gray
Waste, there was the tiniest fragment of something that wasn't evil
that had been present in the melting pot of rendered down soulstuff and
Evil that the 'loths form from. It might have been chance, it might
have been a bit of a repentant soul, a tattered shred of a guardinal's
essence devoured by the Waste, or something else that wasn't quite
absolute Evil, but that chance of redemption survived his transitions
and "purifications" and eventually he noticed it himself, and something
changed in the end. Ultimately it was a choice, and before he got to
Elysium's gatetown he suffered for it, hideously so. He's perched on
the cusp of becoming something else, but like his decision to turn away
from Evil, he'll make that stride on his own, in his own time.
"FWIW, the character shows up in my 1st storyhour as a pitiable figure,
locked away in the astral prison of Pitiless by his own kind who
routinely mock and torment him for what he represents. The 'loths
wouldn't let him go to find redemption, nor would they kill him to
spare him the agony of being locked inside a form that was by that
point anathema to him. Eventually he ends up being released, his
freedom being purchased in exchange for something else of apparently
equal value to the Keeper of the Tower Arcane, and he makes his way to
Elysium. There's a point where he walks through the portal to that
plane and as the sunlight on the other side washes over him, his
previous form ripples and washes away, leaving him appearing as a
cervidal, but with the unique, color-shifting eyes of an ultroloth to
mark him as having arrived there by a different path than most.
"From that point on he never left Elysium, because the 'loths would hunt
him down and kill him, but he shows up several times later to give
advice from his perspective of having been a 'loth, and having been
privy to so many of their secrets, albeit his "fall" from them happened
to long ago those secrets are worth less now than if he'd been part of
the current power structure in Gehenna, the Waste, or Carceri. He has
some poignant moments, and while his history and development in the
Storyhour isn't the same as the version of him that appears in Dragon
351, you might assume the same backhistory for the character in most
respects."
- 479 reads