Lazarus Creed

"Think of it this way - if you were born blind, how would you know the sun exists? You'd feel it of course, every morning when you awoke and stretched your limbs you'd sense it. The ambient energy, the warmth - and the pain if you were negligent. Sensing the arcane is no different; start by closing your eyes and feeling. Extend your senses outward, beyond yourself to everything else you can reach.

But it's not just warmth you feel now, is it?

''Now there's the heartbeat of the sparrow outside our window, her panic as she trills to her young in the nest. And that gnawing feeling - the hunger of the stray cat climbing the tree in the courtyard. Go beyond opening yourself up to such small things, they'll distract you. Reach the people in the streets; the chaos of their lives, both the good and the bad. How long before you start to shut yourself off from pandemonium I wonder? It's a natural thing, we weren't created to feel so much at once. Don't allow it to overwhelm you. Go further, to that thunderstorm brewing just off the horizon. The turbulence of the winds, the raw unchecked power of the lightning - and at the center of the maelstrom.. the beating heart of the storm.''

''Return now to yourself. Look inward to that love and rage that you feel in your gut, which one overshadows the other? Do they pale in comparison to your hatred? Your ambition? Your compassion? Don't allow yourself to be consumed by a singular emotion, recognize what lies within yourself and accept it. Your capacity for great and terrible things.''

''Your magic will react to your feelings. We don't conjure, a bolt of lightning doesn't simply manifest itself out of thin air - that'd be nonsensical. Though many don't understand it, a mage is a conduit for the arcane energy around him. Just as a swordsman wields a blade.. a magi wields the arcane with his heart and mind." - Lazarus commentary on the nature of magic''

Birth and Childhood years
Raised as a ward of the Temple of Pelor, Lazarus was found a bawling infant swaddled in a tattered cloak on the steps of Summerset's small chapel. A series of more alarming events in the weeks prior had made the appearance of an unwanted baby the talk of few in the village, likely the offspring of one of the traveling tropes or caravans that passed through the town every so often.

The cleric-priest of the chapel, Doran, took it upon himself to raise the child and located a woman willing to be a wet-nurse for the babe, a commoner by the name of Therisa Thorne, having recently given birth to her own son Acaelius.

Being raised in the clergy had its benefits for an inquisitive young mind; as the young Lazarus never lacked in reading material in the form of old tomes and manuscripts. He grew from a soft-spoken, curious child to an extroverted and rambunctious youth.

Over time he learned the higher mysteries of the Gods and their domains, both the righteous and the wicked. He'd pick up simple cantrips to mend cuts and scrapes, bless travelers with the holy words of the clergy, provide comfort for the infirm and embalm the dead. Doran came to look upon the boy as his own son, even going to far as to begin grooming him to take his place as the village's cleric and religious leader. There was a part of the old priest that wondered if perhaps one day Lazarus would show enough promise to make the journey to the Shining City and join Pelor's priestly caste of Radiant Servants.

His adolescent years proved distracting as Lazarus grew increasingly close with Acaelius Thorne and another childhood friend, a pauper by the name of Boston Kelevra.