Ghost

[Not really important, but his story might be confusing without context]

Ghost lives in the Rhyll Dominion, which is a reasonably sized nation ruled by seven lords, or Generals, because they are militaristic. One of the Generals is known as the High General and is basically viewed as the leader of the nation, the one who sets the direction for future policies/ laws. The other Generals have equal power and roughly equal territory size, but the High General rules over the largest land area, the capital. The Generals convene in a council every month to decide on stuff, and the High General will have the deciding vote.

The Tournament of Yion

Every year, a grand tournament will be held among Rhyll warriors (aka their military) to determine who gets to be the leader, who gets more territory, etc. Warriors will issue challenges to other warriors for their rank, wealth, or territory. No one is allowed to refuse a challenge unless they are deemed medically unfit to fight. Matches are just 1v1 duels, and opponents are allowed to kill. 

The Generals can be challenged for their title as well, with the winner becoming the new General. However, Generals typically remain unchallenged since they are more likely than not the strongest warriors, and no one really wants to risk their life unless they are sure they can win. If a General died or hit the retirement age the previous year, the rank is passed to their heir, and anyone else that wants the position will have to challenge their heir. If they have no heir, then all candidates who want the position will simply 1v1 among themselves until a victor is determined. Only other Generals can challenge the High General. 

All ranks below High General are determined through this system. A General doesn’t appoint their own lieutenants, but they may pick a few warriors they want and train them personally so they may win in the next tournament.

Rhyll Military

Because the Tournament is only open to warriors, anyone who wants to climb up the hierarchy will have to join the military. All Rhyll youths are enrolled into a military school/ training programme sorta thing from the age of ten. They are taught basic fighting skills and other stuff like. Math. And wilderness survival probably. When they turn sixteen, they can choose to drop out to pursue a different career path, or they choose to become a warrior to serve in the army. However, becoming a warrior is a commitment for life. Warriors are not allowed to quit unless they hit the retirement age, or if they are physically unable to fight anyone. Should a warrior choose to leave the army prematurely, it would be considered desertion, a crime punishable by execution. 

Warriors are not allowed to defy a General. Common citizens, on the other hand, can talk as much shit as they want, unless someone accuses them of defamation.

Rhyll Judicial System

“Treason” is punishable by death, but the definition of treason is often greatly debated upon. There isn’t one fixed set of activities that constitutes treason, so anyone could be accused of treason for just about any minor offence. The offender is trialed at a military court, and if found guilty, will be executed. Typically Generals appoint an executioner, but some do it themselves.

Rhyll Clans: They are essentially just large families. Members of a clan do not have to be blood-related, but they will share a family name.

On a chilly winter night, a young Lupi, separated from her pack, gave birth to a child. Weakened by sickness and the cold, she knew she could not care for the child alone in the wilderness. So she brought the child to the nearest citadel and left him by the gates, where she hoped the child's estranged father might find him and take him in. Unbeknownst to her, the child's father had perished in battle months ago. However, the child was not left to die; instead, he was adopted by a few sympathetic servants working in the castle of the Rhyll General Zywei.

The child grew up, nameless and unloved, scorned for his mixed blood heritage and at the mercy of whatever shreds of pity others felt for him. The child of a traitor, he was called, for what honorable Rhyll warrior would fornicate with a member outside of their species? Otherwise, he was simply referred to as "Mutt" or "Mongrel". Day and night, he toiled in the kitchens, cooking up feasts for the warriors while only being allowed leftover scraps himself. 

When the child turned ten, he was sent to be trained for battle, just like any other Rhyll youth. Yet, simple sparring sessions would quickly turn into a battle of life and death for him as his fellow trainees heaped abuse and violence upon him, driven purely by amusement at the sight of the miserable little mutt suffering. The child fought back with a ferocious intensity out of desperation for survival. It was this viciousness in battle that caught the attention of the General Zywei himself. Amused by the little mutt's spirit, the old warrior took him as his own apprentice. 

However, the child's troubles were far from over, for he was merely a pawn for the General to gain more power, another soldier to die on the battlefield for him. The General felt no love for the boy, treating him as poorly as a slave. When the child made the slightest mistakes, he would be punished with beatings or starvation. 

On one particular occasion, the General flung a wine bottle at the child in a fit of drunken anger. The bottle shattered against the child's head and the glass shards partially blinded his left eye. With his impaired vision, the General felt sure the child would become useless as a fighter, and thus prepared to put an end the child's short and miserable life. Yet the next day, the boy had thrown himself back into training like nothing had happened, even developing new techniques and skills to compensate for his weakness. So the General allowed the child to live. 

On another occasion, the General had beaten the child so severely during a training session that he was certain the boy would die of his wounds. Thus, he ordered the servants not to tend to the child and to simply let him perish. As he lay bleeding out on the cold ground, the child swore with all of his ferocity that he would live no matter what he had to endure. And as he made that vow, he felt his wounds start to heal by themselves. Within the hour, he had recovered completely. 

Foolishly, the child returned to the General, in hopes that the discovery of his miraculous ability would garner himself a little favor. Little did he know, the General's cruelty knew no bounds. Rather than the praise he had hoped to receive, the General tied him down to a rack and started to cut him open to test the extent of his healing abilities, going as far as to sever his limbs just to see if they would mend back together.

The child endured this torture for months on end, until the General finally came to the disappointing conclusion that his power could not be transferred to another. The child's status was thus restored from lab rat back to abused manservant. At that point, the child had already begun to harbor a deep hatred for the General in his heart, but he remained afraid to challenge the General. His lowly status meant that no one was willing to stand in support of him. Even if he chose to escape, he had nowhere to turn to and would probably die alone in the wilderness, or simply be hunted down and executed for his desertion. And thus, the child continued to endure, for that was all he knew to do.

One night, the child had been whipped for spilling a cup on wine on the General, and had been hung out on the whipping post in the freezing cold. The child desperately tried to heal the lacerations, but perhaps because his body had become too weak from prolonged mistreatment, his abilities failed him and he soon fell unconscious. 

The next thing he knew, the child woke up in a warm bed, his wounds being tended to by another boy, who assured him that he would be safe now. For the rest of his life, the child would cling on to that small shred of kindness, the first shred of kindness that he had ever been shown. And with that first experience of kindness came a glimmer of hope for his future. For the first time in his life, the child realized that he was not alone in this world.

Later on, as the child discovered the true identity of his savior - the young son of the High General Xion, who had been sent an an envoy to General Zywei's fortress - his hope hardened into a burning resolve. The child made up his mind that one day he would defeat Zywei, and then he would climb the ranks to stand by his savior's side, waiting for the chance to repay the favor.

The child trained and trained, learning all of General Zywei's battle skills, as well as honing his own in secrecy. Soon, that child grew into a young man, and he named himself Ghost. A reminder to himself of what he had been - a shell of a person fit only to lurk in the shadows. As Ghost grew stronger and stronger, he began to gather supporters, others who had also suffered from Zywei's cruelty and wished to see the old General's downfall. 

The Tournament of Yion that year took the nation by surprise as the mighty General Zywei received a challenge for his title for the first time in decades. The challenger was an unknown clanless foot soldier that took the moniker of Ghost. Not a single citizen could have expected for Ghost to win against Zywei almost effortlessly. 

Zywei begged Ghost to kill him, but Ghost decided to spare his life, instead sending him into a shameful exile to suffer the humiliation of his defeat for the rest of his life. This small act of mercy boosted Ghost's popularity among the audiences immensely, and his followers called for him to enter the final battle for the title of High General. The High General Xion had passed away the previous year, and his son Xilan was in line to take his place should no General challenge his authority.

Ghost had no desire to rule over the nation, but what he did secretly desire was the chance to finally be acknowledged as an equal by his beloved savior. Thus, he entered into the final round to face off against Xilan. 

Xilan was a far superior fighter to the elderly Zywei, but Ghost knew that he would still have the upper hand with his regeneration abilities. As such, he deliberately allowed himself to be gravely injured to grant Xilan victory. After the battle, he professed his fealty to Xilan. Xilan, who had forgotten about their first encounter, initially questioned Ghost's motives, but soon took a liking to the young warrior. And Ghost, at long last, was able to take his rightful place by his savior's side as his loyal General and friend.

Ghost began to rule as the General of Zywei's former citadel. While he was inexperienced, he was determined to be a better leader than his mentor. He was fair and just to his people, but he was strict with his laws, punishing rule-breakers and criminals harshly. There were still those who looked down upon him for his heritage, as well as those that lacked faith in him due to his youth. Yet no one dared to challenge the young General for fear of their lives. 

Eventually Ghost took an apprentice of his own, an orphaned young pup by the name of Mikar. While he treated Mikar kindly, almost acting like a father figure, Ghost was not one for overt displays of affection. He remained emotionally distant and held the highest expectations for his student. Mikar grew to view him as an intimidating but well-meaning mentor. 

The first few years of Xilan's rule did not go smoothly for many of the older Generals did not have faith in their new young leader. Yet, due to their age and waning battle prowess, they could not openly challenge Xilan and defeat him in a tournament for his position. Thus, one General, Kizen, staged an underground rebellion by declaring his citadel to be independent from the rest of the Rhyll Dominion. Ghost, angered by their display of defiance, requested to lead an army to take back the citadel. 

With Xilan's approval, Ghost seized the citadel within days, defeating and executing Kizen on the spot. A number of the rebels escaped and Ghost offered to track them down, but was dissuaded of that endeavor by Xilan, who took pity on the survivors. Instead, Ghost paraded Kizen's decapitated head around the citadel as a warning to anyone who harbored treacherous thoughts. Ghost also encouraged Mikar to fight for Kizen’s General position, which his apprentice was able to successfully obtain.

Ghost bore deep feelings for Xilan, but never expected Xilan to reciprocate anything beyond friendship. He never voiced his feelings either, perhaps out of a sense of inferiority and unworthiness that persisted even after Xilan viewing him as his equal. Hence, Ghost could do nothing but watch as Xilan married another and had children of his own. Xilan, on the other hand, simply saw Ghost as a good friend, and was actually slightly frightened by Ghost's behavior on occasion. 

Years later, a thief was caught at Ghost's citadel, and was identified as one of the escaped rebels. Ghost led a patrol to raid the village where the rebels had been hiding. During the raid, Ghost was attacked by a young pup trying to take vengeance for his slain sister. Ghost overpowered the pup easily, but decided to spare the pup out of admiration for the pup's bravery. He decided to adopt the pup, Jine, along with two other children he spared from the massacre, Kiye and Lyen, believing they didn't deserve to suffer for their parents' mistakes.

The pups were initially terrified of Ghost, but once they ascertained that General would not harm them, Kiye and Lyen quickly warmed up to him. Jine alone continued to resent Ghost, despising the warrior for murdering his sister, but there was little he could do to fight back.

The pups trained as Ghost’s apprentices and each became formidable warriors in their own right, earning their places as Ghost’s lieutenants. Even Jine developed a begrudging respect for his mentor. Ghost was strict with them, but cared for them like they were his own children. 

Eventually a plague strickened Rhyll territories, causing their lands to become infertile and poisoning their water supplies. Anyone who caught the sickness would become gravely ill- some were reduced to a catatonic state, while others were driven into insanity. There was no cure.

The remaining Rhyll faced the threat of starvation and overpopulation as habitable land area was rapidly diminishing. To combat the problem, Ghost suggested that they forcibly take land from smaller neighbouring tribes, and integrate their people into the Rhyll Dominion. With no other solution in sight, Xilan agreed to his plan, and Ghost thus led a series of raids to conquer villages outside of their territory. Anyone who resisted the Rhyll would be killed.

Jine, who grew to tolerate Ghost, was unable to put  up with the increasingly brutual actions he was taking, and forcing his lieutenants to take. When Ghost ordered Jine to kill some villagers, the young warrior outright refused and walked away from the Rhyll.

While Ghost was initially enraged by Jine’s betrayal, he had come to see the young warrior as a son, and did not have the heart to hunt him down and execute him. Thus he allowed Jine to roam free, as long as his former apprentice stayed clear of Rhyll affairs.

Growing increasingly desperate to save their people from the encroaching plague, Ghost and Xilan headed to the neighboring Lunaris realm to request for some of their land, which was rumored to be blessed and could ward off any epidemics. The Lunaris refused, however, stating that their territory was small enough as is. 

Angered by the Lunaris's rejection, Xilan ordered Ghost to help him invade their realm. Ghost dutifully followed his liege's orders, leading an army straight to the Lunaris's capital, the Illuminated City. He captured the Captain of the Lunaris Guard and executed the man right before the city's gates. What followed was basically a massacre. The Lunaris's weak military barely put up any resistance as Ghost slaughtered or imprisoned most of members of the Lunarian noble families. The Lunaris leader, the Silver Sage, was captured as well, but his apprentice managed to flee.

Once the capital was under Rhyll control, the rest of the realm fell easily as well, since the remaining cities and villages were far to small to defend themselves.  Ghost began to move the Rhyll population into Lunarian territory, but the plague was spreading faster than they could evacuate. 

To make things worse, a persistent group of Lunaris rebels had sprung up out of seemingly nowhere. Ghost, realizing that the Lunaris must be operating from a secret base, decided that the Lunaris resistance could not be subjugated unless he captured the Silver Sage's apprentice as well, whom the Lunaris had come to view as a beacon of hope.

The apprentice was somehow able to evade all of the patrols Ghost sent after him, until one day, Jine showed up and delivered him right to Ghost's doorstep. Jine informed Ghost that he wanted to join the Rhyll again, offering up the captured apprentice as his proof of loyalty. While Ghost did not trust Jine completely, he was quite willing to give the young warrior a second chance. 

Ghost tortured the apprentice, Ailithir, for the location of their secret base, but Ailithir refused to divulge any information. Deciding his efforts were pointless, Ghost decided to publicly execute Ailithir the next day, hoping to crush the morale of the Lunaris rebels. Yet, as he went to check on his prisoner during the night, he caught Jine in the act of helping Ailithir to escape. At that moment, the breakout alarms were sounded, and Ghost realized that Jine's return had merely been a ploy to free some of his previously captured friends. Furious and heartbroken at Jine's betrayal, Ghost attacked his former apprentice, but Jine and Ailithir managed to slip from his grasp once more. 

Ghost did not see Jine again until the two met in a battle close to the Lunaris capital, with Jine leading the Lunaris rebels to help Ailithir take back his realm. With new direction and the use of magic, the Lunaris forces were victorious, driving the Rhyll army all the way back to the capital. 

The delay of reinforcements caused Ghost's forces to be quickly outnumbered. Yet, the General would not give up. Driven insane by his vow to Xilan to take the Lunaris realm, Ghost ordered his soldiers to fight to the death. He himself engaged in a two way duel with Ailithir and Jine, who were determined to take him down to end the war. As Ghost was overpowered by the two of them, Jine beheaded him. But still, Ghost refused to die. Ailithir and Jine could only watch in horror as his decapitated head tried to fuse itself back to his body.

Unable to heal himself fully, Ghost simply lay bleeding out on the ground with a huge gash in his neck. Fortunately, reinforcements soon arrived, led by Xilan. To Ghost's shock, however, Xilan no longer wished to fight, instead agreeing to negotiate a deal with Ailithir. Xilan felt deeply guilty for the bloodshed they had caused, and requested for the Lunaris's ships so that he may bring what's left of the Rhyll to seek out a new home across the seas. 

Comforted by Xilan, who informed him he no longer has to fight anymore, Ghost finally allowed himself to breathe his last, putting an end to the war between the realms.