Erida

A black knight turned goddess of war and revenge, she is a recognized and reviled killer of both mortals and gods.

Early life and past
She was born to a simple farming family under the name Erida (Middle and last name unavailable). She grew up in a small village on the peaceful world of (Name lost) created and overseen by the god Gallus. One day Gallus left for a while, and left his three children Tephim, Saldim, and Sophar in control of the planet and all its systems. The three young gods got bored and ended up playing with the laws of nature and the tools their father had left with them. They ended up taking it too far and things got out of hand. By the end of it, not even all three of them together could clean up, or even stabilize the mess they'd made. The oceans rose and boiled, the spirits of the dead took bodies and roamed the living world in anger, war and rioting broke out across the map. The skies burned and the very earth jumped and bucked in places at random, creating large valleys and mountains where just the other day had been ocean or plains. The three young gods panicked, and, in an effort to hide the mess they'd made, swept the whole world under the rug and out of existence itself.

Suddenly everything stopped. The oceans weren't boiling anymore, the dead weren't walking anymore, and for the last moment for another nearly ten thousand years, Erida knew true peace. Then, she was torn out of the world and into an extradimensional storm of reality trying to rewrite and repair itself. The energy of the event caused cracks and ripples to form in reality itself, and Erida was one of the few to fall through one of these cracks.

She awoke on a beach on a nearby world with only the vaguest memory of who she was, just her name and an unfathomable sense of loss that she couldn't understand. It was only a few minutes before a local found her and invited her home to help if they could. He introduced her to his family, and she figured out what she was missing.

Her whole homeworld, her childhood, and her family had been erased from history. It wasn't as if they were taken away, they were never there to begin with. There was nothing to remember and nothing to hold onto. Erida became distraught, so the man of the house, having recognized her dialect as being that of a follower of Gallus, offered to take her to the nearest temple to see if she might contact him.

They arrived there the next day. Erida remembered Gallus, though only vaguely. She knelt at the altar and prayed for answers but was instead met by his three children. The three young gods appeared overjoyed at her survival and immediately insisted that she vouch for them. They wanted her to claim that they'd had nothing to do with what happened. Erida asked them what they meant, and without batting an eyelash one of them answered, "We destroyed your homeworld." They then prattled on about how they'd give her a better one with a castle, a gold dragon made of songs, and islands of gold in the skies if she'd just tell their father that it was some horrible outsider who had done it and not them.

Her response was simple. "Give me back my life."

The gods were reckless, but not foolish. They could not bring her home back, not even their father was able to do that. They also weren't stupid enough to let themselves get caught lying, as their father was already angry at them as it was; instead they just tried to sweeten the deal.

"We'll make you a queen in a castle of fine silks and gemstones, you can eat golden bread for the rest of your days!"

Erida didn't care about any of that, she just wanted what she was missing back. She started to become irritated with these vapid, careless gods, they didn't even feel bad, and they just kept talking about how mad their father was.

"Give me back my life, you pieces of shit!"

They stopped talking abruptly. It was apparent she wasn't going to play along, so they swept her under the rug too. They just threw her away, far away, to a distant land in a faraway world on the other side of the realm. Somewhere so far away that Gallus hadn't even heard of it.

She woke up in the forest this time, and found the locals didn't even speak her language. She found herself increasingly filling the hole in her past with thoughts of revenge against those gods, the gods who had erased her entire childhood and family and not so much as apologized for it, those gods who had, when confronted by her in anger, threw her away so they wouldn't have to deal with her anymore.

She decided to kill them.

It was innocent at first, hopeless. How could she ever hope to? She was just a random girl of about sixteen, or so she thought she might've been, in a faraway land with no past. To her it was worth pursuing, if for no other reason than that being all she had left. So she started looking for information on how to kill gods, quickly being branded with a reputation as a heretic. Information on killing gods was taboo and heresy. The locals didn't take well to her asking about it with many assuming she was insane, but the few that took her seriously made her life hell whenever possible. It wasn't long before word spread around about her and people started throwing rocks whenever she entered a new town or city. She found herself locked out of civilization, chased away by knights and farmers whenever she tried to get near.

She found herself angry at these people, but more than that she was starving. Turning to theft to get what she needed, and eventually to banditry, she'd desperately attack people on the road, often defeating or scaring off people bigger and better armed than her through sheer reckless ferocity. She had nothing to lose after all, and no love for these people who had attempted to stone her just for asking a few questions.

Soon her reputation as a bandit and a heretic caught up with her. Bounties started being drawn up, but because of the way she fought and traveled, many hunters, paladins, and knights decided she wasn't worth looking for. They'd go after her if they crossed her path, but as far as actually hunting her, only one man decided to take it seriously.

Erida learned that his name was Badtha Garomell. She'd become aware that he was out for her head one day while hiding out in a small village. She thought she'd managed to hide her identity well enough, but he kicked in the door of the barn she was sleeping in, and almost beheaded her with the first strike. Erida fled, and kept doing so for almost a year. He was a grizzled old man, and he seemed completely sleepless by the way he kept her running. Everywhere she stopped she had to make sure she didn't leave any tracks; every town she went to suddenly included an angry mob led by that ugly, pissed off bastard with the same oversized sword. Her life, which was already stressful and frantic, reached a whole new level of desperation as she was run ragged by an apparently invincible champion.

One day, she managed to evade him in a large mountain city while it was experiencing a heavy blizzard. Knowing that neither of them were going to be able to leave town in the storm, she circled back, possibly to see if she could stalk him for once and take advantage of the situation. To her luck, he decided to get some rest while he knew she wouldn't be able to go anywhere. Witnessing the man enter a hotel and book a room for himself, Erida followed him in with her face covered in scarves and a cloak for disguise. She sat at the bar for almost two hours trying to formulate a plan. Up until now, she'd just been a terrified runaway, and it finally looked like she might have the upper hand.

Erida paid for her drinks and went upstairs. She figured that either it was a trap, or his guard was merely down, but deciding it was worth the risk either way. She could rob him and take whatever he was using to find her, as he seemed to be carrying a lot of money. Erida took her time picking the lock, making sure to remain quiet, and stepped inside the dimly lit hotel room.

It was too simple. She couldn't believe that the man who had tirelessly chased her for so long could have been so careless! There he was, asleep on the bed with his armor half on+++++++++

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Erida came in contact with a small sect of an outsider cult who put her in contact with certain dark forces offering power, money, influence, and wishes granted to people willing to work for them. She asked if they could help her kill gods and they were at first caught off guard, but quickly agreed and offered her a contract as a black knight, a warrior who would fight in their name to further their goals all over the mortal realm. Erida agreed, stating that she would pay any price if need be, even her mortal soul.

The agent had a good laugh at that, and explained that she'd need a lot more than one soul to pay for something like this...

Career as a black knight
Black knight is a general term for a person in service to a powerful dark entity who grants boons to assist in their service. The contract is fairly simple and straightforward. If you want something, they can give it to you in exchange for services rendered. The something is up to the person entering the contract, and they can ask for almost anything depending on the power of the entity they are signed to. Additionally, the entity can charge whatever they deem fair, in whatever form they please.

Once both parties agree to the terms, the contract is considered legally binding and will be enforced by Tartarine extraplanar law. The person, hereby referred in the contract as the signed party, will be granted boons and support by the entity, who is hereby referred in the contract as the holding party, and who will often assign some kind of quota to be met to continue recieving support.

At this point the signed party will be made aware of the final price of whatever it was that they requested in the contract as dictated by the holding party, and given a means to pay that price, usually through services rendered. Larger entities or organizations may have multiple means to pay off the contract, such as different kinds of work or tasks to complete. The specific price and how it is measured is entirely up to the holding party, and is mentioned in the initial drawing up of the contract.

Should the signed party fail to perform, or fail to meet quotas to a point where the holding party feels that they are being insufficiently repaid for their part in the contract, then the holding party has the ability to render the contract incomplete, and collect the full value of the signed party in reparation.

Should the signed party collect payment sufficient to complete the contract, the holding party will be required to offer completion to them within three Tartarine standard legal weeks or be subject to potential future legal action by the signed party.

Once the signed party pays off the contract and recieves their final reward from the holding party, the contract will be considered complete, and voided. The signing party becomes the recieving party and the holding party becomes the paying party.

As soon as the contract was accepted, Erida was sent to her holding party's headquarters, a nexus point known as the Black gates of Gharaberathell. When she arrived, she was contacted by an agent who briefed her on the credit system that would be used to measure her payment, and also found out the final price to be paid to complete her contract, something she hadn't even asked about during the initial drawing up of the contract. The price was astronomical, to the point where Erida didn't even recognize the numbers being listed off. However, since she didn't really understand the credit system well, she figured it might not have been that much after all, and as soon as the agent finished listing off numbers (it took a few minutes), she asked to be taken to start her work.

The services system in place