Commander Knight - Lydia the Merciless

Once a renowned mercenary and officer within the Golden Griffins, Lydia spilt rivers of blood during her time among them on the front lines of the Liturium War. When the Griffins betrayed their employers, Lydia was captured and tortured, though managed to escape and flee to Draksborne where she would eventually find herself in service to the Duke of Canos.

Raised in Belfrie’s capital of Jochenia, Lydia was the only child to one of King Silus’ generals. Though for her father, he did not fret over having only a daughter to carry on his lineage, for he still groomed her for command and battle as he would have a son, despite the calls for reconsideration and protests by both his peers and superiors. Lydia heeded none of the words that came from the tongues of the serpents that would question her capability, for the relentless teachings and cruel training of her father and instructors moulded her into a soldier of resilience and stoicism.

She longed for the chance to prove herself in battle, and the chance seemingly arrived at the dawn of the Duskweave Campaign as armies of Formen, Belfrie and Leacianus mustered and set sail for the undead infested isle. Yet her father forbade her, for she was only fourteen summers old, and too young to be sent to battle, for no suit of armour yet fit her. So she waited impatiently in the war camps in Volosvio for her father to return, but when the last fleets arrived back, her father was not among them. King Silus informed her with a heavy fight he had perished in the fighting, and in a storm Lydia left, running for dozens of miles until she reached Velandria, collapsing before its gates. There she gave her name and life to the mercenary company, the Golden Griffins, who were willing to literally take anyone off the street.

Though they thought this street urchin might perish on her first mission, she might make good fodder to protect the better fighters. Yet they were wrong. The girl was possessed by some demon or spirit within that made her fight with an intense ferocity they had never seen, with the speed and agility of a leopard, able to leap bounds like her body was infused with the strength of a Colossal, but the grace of an Elf. It seemed her father’s death had spurred something to change inside Lydia, and fighting now came to her as naturally as walking and breathing: she was unstoppable. She climbed the ranks swiftly to an officer position in only five years, and led her own battalion when the Liturium War began, reluctantly fighting against her countrymen as her company allied with the treacherous Leacianans who betrayed her kin and their Formeni allies. She always wore her helmet in shame during the war, recognising the patches and banners of men that fought under her father, men she would skewer with her blade, remorse weighed heavier on her with every kill.

When the Golden Griffins were given the order to turn against their Leacianan allies, Lydia’s battalion was alone and outnumbered by the Leacianans. Choosing to ignore the order and instead make a withdrawal, they were uncovered and accused of deserting. Carnage ensued, and an unbridled rage coursed through Lydia’s body as she cut down ten dozen Elves herself before she was finally wounded and captured. Blood had stained her skin and armour, and even her captors and torturers feared her, after she was able to disembowel one with a single kick let loose by a poorly tied bond on her foot. Despite their best efforts to capture and torture her until she died, her vitality endured. Only on faking her death was she able to break free, dismembering her captors with her hands before bursting through the walls of the castle, running to freedom. Not knowing whether she would be killed on sight entering Formen or Belfrie, she opted to travel to Draksborne instead, where she found new work as a freelance sellsword, not wishing to join the Griffins and return to the war again.

Word of her ferocity quickly spread through central Draksborne, eventually reaching the ears of the Duke of Canos himself, who invited Lydia to his court to test her mettle. Thoroughly impressed by her able to even best Gerhardt the Unwavering, he anointed her a citizen of Draksborne, giving her a position as his Commander after hearing tale of her war stories on the front lines of Leacianus, deciding she held more battle-experience than any of his knights and generals combined. When Dragonblight erupted, he thought sending her against Bastian the Everknowing would be a sure way to see the Psionic Knight killed, though he did not take into account how quickly Bastian would be able to turn Lydia against him, with her mind overpowered and lost shortly after she reached Bastian’s proximity.