Rad
Short for radiation. Usually some form of deadly or harmful radiation. There is no known instance of Rad being used to signify safe radiation such as visible light. The pleasure inducing recreational usage of code and mind scrambling radiation by the Adeptus Mechanicus resulted in the use of the word rad in the context of slang for cool.
Mystaran Immortal[edit | edit source]
| Rad | ||
|---|---|---|
|
||
| Aliases | Etienne d'Ambreville | |
| Alignment | Lawful Neutral | |
| Divine Rank | Empyreal Immortal | |
| Pantheon | Mystaran Immortal (Energy) | |
| Portfolio | Glantri, knowledge, magic, the radiance | |
| Domains | Knowledge, Law, Magic | |
| Home Plane | Prime Material Plane (Glantri, Mystara) | |
| Worshippers | Inhabitants of Glantri, magic-users | |
| Favoured Weapon | Dagger | |
In Mystara, Rad is the alias for Etienne d'Ambreville, an Immortal in the Sphere of Energy who masquerades as the aged ruler of the magocratic Principalities of Glantri and the headmaster of its School of Magic.
History[edit | edit source]
Etienne was the head of the d'Ambreville family, a family spellcasters who just happened to live in a land where magic was illegal (specifically, Averoigne, the Sword & Sorcery France created by Clark Ashton Smith). Escaping persecution, they found out that they could open portals to other planes and dimensions, and used these to move to Glantri and quickly became the rulers of their own principality, which they named New Averoigne after their old home. The d'Ambreville's, now known as the House of Sylaire, continued becoming stronger and more influential, until Etienne's wife and brother attempted to kill, activating a spell that caused the family to be trapped in their castle. Fortunately, a group of adventurers undid the curse, and freed Etienne along with his family. Etienne then helped found the School of Magic and slowly transformed the nation into a magocracy.
As he worked on finding out everything there was about magic, he discovered the Nucleus of the Spheres, a nuclear reactor from the time of Blackmoor that was altered by the Immortals. He studied the device and found a way to tap into its energy, the Radiance, and using it managed to ascend to Immortality in the Sphere of Energy without a patron. In the century and a half since his ascension, he has continued his quest for knowledge by ruling Glantri in his mortal form and guiding others to study the Radiance, as well as in his Immortal guise of Rad, acting as the patron of Glantrian magic-users and enforcing the nations official philosophy through the Temples of Rad.
Appearance[edit | edit source]
Rad appears the same in both his Immortal and mortal guise; an old human man with a great, white beard, and with sharp, inquisitive eyes.
Personality[edit | edit source]
Rad usually acts as doddering old man to throw off people, but he has a twisted sense of humor like the rest of his family, and he teases those who think too rigidly. Underneath all that, he is kind and has a hard time taking any of his enemies seriously. He's friendly with trickster Immortals like Eiryndul, Korotiku, and Loki due to their wit, and with Rafiel due to their common interest in the Radiance. He has no real enemies, but has made himself irritating to the more traditionalist Immortals.
Despite this friendliness to other trickster Immortals, he does keep the Immortals as a whole at bay, and worship of any Immortal other than Rad is a crime punishable by exile or death in Glantri - clerics are loathed and reviled by the Glantrians. The fact that the other Immortals tampered with the Nucleus of the Spheres so that Rad's cultists are unwittingly draining Mystara of all magic, and will eventually turn it into a world from which all fantastical elements and creatures have been purged, certainly hasn't endeared them to him.
Rad desperately wants to find a way to undo the curse on the Nucleus, but hasn't managed to pull it off yet. This puts him in the precarious position of trying to simultaneously keep his cult (and their respective draining) small and also to promote the cult's members to ascend to Immortality, in hopes that eventually he'll get an allied Immortal or two who can help him fix this whole mess that the other Immortals caused.