Kjeldin

Campaign: Age of Wonders / Under the Bus
Folder: Characters / Historical Figures
Status: Established / Historical
Source Base: Campaign correspondence and reconstructed campaign canon

Overview

Kjeldin was a human wizard, scholar, and one of the original five bearers of The Five Gifts during the Korvak War. He was the bearer of the Red Gift, whose known specialization was Evocation and destructive offensive magic.

Kjeldin became known as Kjeldin the Destroyer because of the devastation he could unleash with the Gift. Of the original Gift Bearers, he was particularly reluctant to surrender the power he had been given. His attachment to the Gift eventually became an obsession that shaped the remainder of his life and, indirectly, the history of his son Correries.

The Korvak War

Gift Bearer

Kjeldin was chosen by Demmazon as one of the five original Gift Bearers during the Korvak War.

The five were:

Vestal Stone — White Gift
Kjeldin — Red Gift
Salendaius Moonstrike — Blue Gift
Alantarin the Wise — Yellow Gift
Thorn Runehammer — Green Gift

The Gift Bearers fought together against the Korvaks and ultimately defeated the invasion.

Kjeldin's particular contribution was the devastating offensive power of the Red Gift. His ability to unleash enormous destructive magic earned him the title Kjeldin the Destroyer.

The Red Gift

The Red Gift's documented specialization was Evocation.

In later historical analysis, however, scholars came to suspect that the Red Gift also possessed an affinity for Necromancy.

This was never something that could be directly verified from the Gift itself. By the time the evidence for Necromancy emerged, the Gift had already been absorbed by Correries.

The suspicion had two major foundations.

First, the other non-White Gifts were known to encompass more than one school of magic, while the Red Gift was apparently limited to Evocation. The Five Gifts collectively appeared to account for the schools of magic known from the Player's Handbook, with Necromancy being the apparent exception.

Second, centuries later, Riatin discovered the secrets of Necromancy while experimenting with the Red Gift after Correries had acquired it. Correries and Ulanthar were concentrating their efforts on the Blue Gift and its use in creating the drow, allowing Riatin to use the Red Gift for his own experiments.

Because Correries had absorbed the Gift, however, no one could subsequently examine the artifact independently to determine whether Necromancy was truly part of its original nature.

The historical conclusion was therefore presented as speculation—but the speculation was correct.

Kjeldin himself should not be described as a necromancer. His documented use of the Red Gift was centered on Evocation and destructive magic.

After the Korvak War

Surrendering the Gift

After the Korvak War, the surviving Gift Bearers became increasingly concerned about the danger represented by the Gifts.

Kjeldin was reluctant to surrender the Red Gift. He had become deeply attached to its power, and giving it up represented an enormous personal loss.

Eventually Alantarin the Wise persuaded him to surrender it for safekeeping.

Alantarin withdrew to a secret mountain temple to protect the Gifts entrusted to him. Kjeldin was deliberately not told where the temple was located.

Life Without the Gift

The loss of the Red Gift left Kjeldin with a profound sense of emptiness.

Nevertheless, he continued to live for several centuries. His time as a Gift Bearer had greatly extended his lifespan, and he contributed to the rebuilding of civilization and the development of magic and technology during the centuries following the Korvak War.

He eventually married and had two children:

For a time, his family helped pull him away from his fixation with the lost Gift.

The obsession ultimately returned.

Search for Alantarin

Kjeldin eventually learned that Alantarin was somewhere in a mountain range and set out to find him.

His apparent goal was to recover the Red Gift. He never found Alantarin's hidden sanctuary. Kjeldin entered the mountains and never returned. He was presumed to have frozen to death.

The exact means by which his death was established are not important to the surviving history and are not currently documented.

Legacy Through Correries

Kjeldin's death had a profound effect on his son, Correries.

Correries inherited his father's fascination with the lost Gift and eventually became determined to find the Gifts himself. He became an accomplished wizard and later served on the High Council of Aegea alongside Magerris.

Unlike his father, Correries ultimately succeeded in locating the hidden Gifts.

His acquisition of the Red Gift became especially significant. Correries absorbed its power, and while he and Ulanthar concentrated on using the Blue Gift in their experiments that would eventually produce the drow, Riatin used the Red Gift for his own experiments.

Those experiments ultimately led to the discovery of Necromancy.

Thus, although Kjeldin's own obsession with the Red Gift ended with his death in the mountains, that same obsession was inherited by Correries and became one of the threads leading toward the Fall of the Age of Wonders.

Historical Significance

Kjeldin's importance to the campaign is primarily as the beginning of a chain of events:

Korvak War → Red Gift → Kjeldin's attachment to its power → loss of the Gift → search for Alantarin → death → Correries inherits the obsession → recovery of the Gifts → Riatin's discovery of Necromancy.

His personal tragedy therefore became part of the larger catastrophe that followed generations later.

Known Unknowns

The following details remain unestablished or unnecessary to reconstruct without additional source material:

Kjeldin's exact age when Demmazon chose him.
His life and career before the Korvak War.
The identity and history of his wife.
The precise circumstances by which his death in the mountains was determined.
The full extent of the Red Gift's capabilities beyond its documented Evocation specialization.
Whether Kjeldin ever unknowingly accessed any aspect of the Gift's latent Necromantic capability.
The precise mechanism by which Riatin used the Red Gift to unlock Necromancy.
The full circumstances surrounding Kjeldin's final years and his search for Alantarin.