Michael Mitre

[Judas D'arc]

Given Name: Michael
Family Name: Mitre
Other Names: Mitre
Current Titles: None
Past Titles: First Seeker of the Rangers of Spiritwood; Keeper of the Rangers Guild of Skara Brae; The Hollowed Man
Place of Birth: Skara Brae
Current Whereabouts: Deceased
Known Relatives: Michael Mitre (Son, Deceased); William (Son)
Other Affiliations: The Rangers of Spiritwood; Rangers Guild of Skara Brae; Mylar Tyrmitore; Governor Guy Greywulfe; Erollisi Stower; Lord Haxley

Race: Human
Age: He was in his late thirties at the time of his original death. Post-Hollowing, he appeared to be a man in his early forties, though the body he occupied was over 300 years.
Hair: Originally, his hair was an oak-blonde color. Post-Hollowing, he dyed his naturally black hair a similar shade of oak-blonde.
Eyes: Originally, his eyes were gray-blue. Post-Hollowing, they were a rust-colored brown.
Skin Tone: Fair
Height: Originally, his height was approximately six feet, one inch. Post-Hollowing, he stood around six and a half feet tall.
Build: Originally, his was a thin, athletic build. Post-Hollowing, he possessed a medium frame reflecting intensive physical activity

Demeanor: Following the Stowers’ failed Hollowing that put his spirit into the body of Renthar, he altered his appearance to match his original one. His dyed hair and beard were always neatly trimmed, his posture was stiffer, and he was far more conservative with his prominent smile. He also strived to maintain a subdued demeanor, at peace with himself and the world around him.

Equipment: As a Seeker in the Rangers of Spiritwood, Mitre wore brown leathers, a green cloak, and he carried a war axe. Post-Hollowing, as the Keeper of the Rangers Guild of Skara Brae, he was usually dressed in a mix of chainmail and platemail, a brownish cloak, and a matching sash. Initially, he used a war axe, the weapon of preference of his first body. However, he eventually began wielding sword weapons, which was similar to Renthar’s style of fighting.

Known History: Born centuries ago in Skara Brae to a healer and her husband, Mitre decided at a young age to pursue the path of a ranger, and at sixteen, he joined a local order, the Rangers of Spiritwood. One of his fellow initiates was Karinne, daughter of their order’s Keeper, and they developed a close friendship. There were times he privately wondered, that if it was not for their oaths, if their relationship could have blossomed into something more. As a ranger, Mitre fought under Uulder Malphane against the ogre Yavituk, and helped the people of Skara Brae recover from the Great Earthquake that separated their island from the mainland. He easily rose through the ranks of the order, eventually becoming First Seeker, its second-in-command.

Soon, however, he found himself in circumstances that forced him to ally with two of Sosaria’s more nefarious denizens, the immortal witch Ilyana and Renthar, a former servant of Mondain. A rival of Ilyana had kidnapped her child, and the three joined together to save her. During this time, the witch shared a bed with both the ranger and Renthar. After Ilyana’s foe was killed and her offspring rescued, Mitre returned to Spiritwood. But he soon realized he could not ignore the larger threat posed by his former allies, and against Karinne’s wishes and her father’s orders, he departed Spiritwood to hunt them. First, the ranger traveled to the settlement of Magincia to confront Ilyana. When he discovered her pregnant, possibly by him, he decided to delay justice until after she had given birth. This never came to pass, as his next encounter with Renthar went poorly, ending in Mitre’s capture, torture, and death.

Ilyana never confirmed who fathered the child she gave birth to months later, but she named him Michael Mitre. Once Michael reached adulthood, he embarked upon a quest to learn for himself. He spent time among the Rangers of Spiritwood, even befriending an elderly Keeper Karinne. For a time, the two were lovers. Michael eventually decided he must be the son of Mitre, and he attempted to avenge the death of a man he never knew. Renthar killed him too.

The Hollowing: Over two centuries later, a mysterious threat caused Renthar to seek protection from the Stowers, the family of the now-dead Ilyana. This proved a grievous miscalculation on his part; the new head of the family, Alionna Arroway, was hardly receptive to his request. She recalled his previous transgressions against the family, including his murder of Michael Mitre.

She decided that Renthar would serve as a test subject for a ritual the Stowers had spent decades trying to perfect. Known as“The Hollowing,” its purpose was to “hollow” out an individual and remove their soul, allowing the spirit of a dead individual to occupy their body instead. Ilyana first commissioned it as a way to ensure that she could return from death, and after she died, her children were trying to finish it. Alionna thought it would be fitting to “hollow” Renthar and replace his spirit with that of her long-dead half-sibling, Michael Mitre. However, there was an error in the soul-summoning aspect of the ritual, and instead of Michael Mitre, they mistakenly placed the spirit of his dead father, the ranger Mitre, inside Renthar. He was not completely hollowed either, the two souls co-mingled, and the result was Mitre’s mind in his murderer’s body, yet with access to Renthar’s memories and knowledge, and strongly influenced by his personality. The Stowers mistakenly believed the process destroyed their unwitting test subject and disposed of his body.

[Judas D'arc]

The Keeper: After surviving the Hollowing, Michael Mitre, as he now called himself, embarked upon a quest of pursuing vengeance against the Stowers and gathering power for himself. There were no direct witnesses to his movements, or accounting of the exact order in which all of these events occurred, but he demonstrated an extensive awareness of the Stower family tree -- the various children and their offspring that Ilyana (later Iliana) spawned across the centuries, and it must have taken time and patience to accumulate such knowledge. On the streets of the City of Vesper, he found Erollisi, the illegitimate daughter of Iliana’s bastard Arlin Kensdrick. He gave her a new life, mentoring her as a ranger, and he became like the father she never had. Mitre provided the current incarnation of the Rangers of Spiritwood with information about Alionna Arroway, who was responsible for destruction of their northern Outpost.

He next traveled northwards tand launched a vicious attack against the White Stone, the hidden glade in the Deep Forest that birthed the original covenant of the Rangers of Spiritwood. There, Mitre assaulted the glade’s protector, the Spirit of the Keepers, an amalgamation of every Keeper that ever was or would be, banishing it to the Abyss. From this spirit, he stole the small wooden box, the symbol of the Keeper’s burden, twisting and tainting it so that he could become the new Keeper of Spiritwood. In this role, he allied with Governor Guy Greywulfe of Skara Brae, who was secretly an agent of the cult known as the Broken Ankh. Due to the loss of their Keeper and other recent problems, the Rangers of Spiritwood were struggling to stay together, so Greywulfe named the Rangers Guild as the city’s preeminent defenders and appointed Mitre to lead it.

As Keeper, Mitre helped protect Skara Brae and Spiritwood, while furthering his own schemes, and his leadership forged the Rangers Guild into a force capable of defending both. The guild contended with corruption threatening the forest, a minor vampiric incursion, and they explored the newly discovered land of Eodon. Mitre aided Greywulfe in carefully balancing the hostilities between Governor Merek Penrose and his New Order of Moonglow, and the murderous Hand of Yew. At the same time, he arranged for the murder or capture of many Stowers, whittling away at their family tree until his protege Erollisi was appointed their new head. Some of his victims were believed to include a pair of pregnant Stower women. The Keeper also took a handful of lovers; the most significant of these was Mylar Tyrmitore, a Seeker of the Rangers of Spiritwood who was one of the few of her order to join the Rangers Guild.

But all the secrets and the dark acts perpetrated by the Keeper, Greywulfe and the Broken Ankh, and Devon Hawkins of the Rangers Guild were eventually revealed, and the former Rangers of Spiritwood reunited to set things right. Among the casualties of this conflict were the rangers Katalin Blackwell and Rhys Jarrett, the druid Cian, and Hawkins himself. Mitre and his Rangers Guild were arrested, and Greywulfe vanished as mysteriously as he first appeared. In exchange for amnesty for his surviving subordinates, Erollisi, Jakar, Leo, Mylar, and Siobhan, the Keeper returned the stolen small wooden box, although ex-Rangers of Spiritwood ultimately chose not to restore the ancient covenant and create a new White Stone.

Mitre’s End: Mitre earned his own freedom by utilizing Renthar’s memories and performing a ritual that saved the life of the ranger Tobias Cardont. He settled in the wilds of Tokuno with his lover, Mylar Tyrmitore, and after suffering a miscarriage, she became pregnant again. But the former Keeper was pursued by the mysterious threat which had initially caused Renthar to seek aid from the Stower family, his counterpart from another world. Despite the efforts of Haxley, a would-be Time Lord, and Erollisi, the couple’s hiding place was found by Jolicia, the so-called Emissary of this otherworldly Renthar. Sergio Jarrett, brother of one of Mitre’s victims, the deceased ranger Rhys, was among the group that found them. He challenged his siblings’ executioner to a duel to the death, and with the help of Jolicia, Sergio proved victorious.

After his death, Haxley held a reading of Mitre’s will on the docks of Zento, and various people whose lives he had touched were in attendance. Mylar soon gave birth to their son William, and it was later foretold that if he reaches adulthood, William would become a powerful sorcerer and hunt those he blamed for his father’s death and torment, including Renthar, Jolicia, Sergio Jarrett and anyone that he considers his family, and the Stowers and their home, the City of Nujel’m.