------------- Famous Clergy of Arrallon - Saint Arrianne

A thousand years ago, the continent of Callona was torn by a war that would never end, or so everyone believed. After the fall of the First Symballan Empire, the confederation of slaves that had bound together to form the first organized resistance were falling into squabbling. Squabbling led to disputes, then to clan fighting, then to war. The poliats of ancient Atheae, Maeceyea, Viridia, Equideyea, and Centeyea, were awash in blood. For centuries, the wars raged, vengeance on vengeance, glory and triumph leading to plague and famine, leading to hatred and contempt, leading to more violence. It was the time historians call The Age of Steel.

The Atheaen Gods grew strong on the fighting, feeding off the conflict, each pitting his or her hero against another in a never ending board game with live pieces. Athena's pleas for peace went unheard. She knew that the wars would never end unless the mortals could see for themselves the folly to which they had fallen, for the Gods of Olympus enjoyed the game too much to stop.

She raised one man over all others of his kind, and set him atop Her church as its High Priest. He was a Zeigus Elven warrior named Kandevari Bennestervan. He strode into battle at the lead of the forces of Atheae, and crushed all armies who opposed him. But he met his defeated enemy not with torment and slavery, but with forgiveness and the will to rebuild their lands as well as his own. As an elf, he outlived many generations of the humans he led and fought against. He became a legend on both sides of the war.

At last, on a black day on the southern coast, he met his end on the spear of a Viridian warlord. Were that all there was, his story might have been washed away by the tides of blood that followed. Instead, his daughter stepped forward and took the mantle of High Priestess. She took his example and his teachings and used them both to shame the opposing armies into a treaty. Where other treaties had been penned and burned throughout the Age of Steel, Arrianne Bennestervan would see that all sides were constantly reminded of what her father had fought and died for, lasting and meaningful peace throughout the eastern kingdoms of Callona.

Arrianne retired at length and moved to the Orclands, settling in Nice Little Place with her friends, the Houlifar Rogue Rellik Zale, the Human Paladin Leyland, and the Half-Demon Ranger Talon Baellgorral. She left the office of High Priest to her paramour, another Zeigus warrior/priest named Pallimar. In the opening volleys of the War of Tryskellias, battling Githyanki invaders, she fell. Her loss was felt throughout the church of Athena, and within twenty years after her death, she was deified by the church as Athena's Patron Saint of Peacemakers.

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