Cyril Lambrecht, Resolute Ritualist

Past. Cyril Lambrech was once a mild-mannered hedge wizard, performing odd jobs for the farms, businesses, and lord of his countryside town of Roudlaux. When reports emerged that an Aslakian dragon had been seen stealing livestock in the countryside nearby, Lord Hubert de Roudlaux sent to the nearby city of Saint Martens for aid—but aid never arrived.

Cyril never learned why the dragon attacked—whether Roudlaux had offended it, or whether it was merely the first volley in the war that followed—but when Roudlaux was reduced to ash and embers, Cyril was one of the few survivors.

When his efforts to seek his family and neighbors' resurrection from the Church led only to his imprisonment for unlicensed magecraft, Cyril became determined to bring them back himself. After a chance visit allowed him to obtain the long-lost spellbook of infamous ritualist Benoit Dumont from a bookshop owner (who almost certainly didn't know what he had), Cyril spent six months decoding the runes within, then used Dumont's notes and spells to become a powerful necromancer himself.

After Roudlaux's destruction and the perpetrator's capture and execution became the casus belli of a Lumontish-Aslakian war, Cyril spent the following years recruiting and training a small army of apprentices from victims, deserters, and refugees. Satisfied and emboldened by the zeal of his followers, Cyril set off to complete and carry out Dumont's final, unfinished ritual: one that would allow the caster to consume the souls of thousands in order to become a new god.

Present. Now in middle-age, with greying salt-and-pepper hair, pale skin from days spent indoors and underground, and sunken eyes from too many sleepless, nightmare-filled nights, Cyril was, and remains, a mild-mannered, well-dressed man who knows he has come too far to turn back now. He is unfailingly polite, though at times fails to prevent his countryside roots from showing. He bears little anger toward Saint Martens or the ruling class of Lumont now—only a quiet, unbreakable, grim conviction that justice has come for them at last.

At the time the players arrive in the Tomb of Divine Rays, Cyril is in the Tomb's Gathering Hall with his undead guard and zombie dragon "pet," monitoring and controlling the flows of energy from the leyline beneath the catacombs as he prepares to unleash the ritual's final phase.

Future. Cyril has long believed that he has no future. He intends to use his power, once ascended, to restore the lives lost in the border towns through necromancy, starting with Roudlaux. Once his task is complete, he fully intends to abdicate his power and relinquish his spirit to the void.