Raudhan

Executioner Raudhan S'il-Softuch, Renegade Empath
“I heal the living. I end the rest.”

Raudhan S'il-Softuch
Status	Active
Race	Human
Gender	Female
Guild	Empath
Instance	Prime

People like to assume I was destined to be an Empath—that with parents like Raelith and Dhauron S’il-Softuch, healers of the Ilithic wilds, the Guild was always my inevitable home. But I fought that expectation at every turn. My parents saw service and serenity as the highest virtues. I saw a cage. They spoke of the Guild as if it were an inheritance waiting for me. I saw a path carved by someone else’s hands. And so I pushed against it, wanting nothing to do with the quiet rooms, the soft voices, the delicate philosophy they claimed would someday be mine.

It was only after they were killed—cut down during a marauder raid on the Knife Pass—that I walked into a Guildhall. I did not join to honor them. I joined because my own helplessness had been laid bare. Because the world had proven it had teeth, and I needed a way to stand my ground. The Guild taught me to heal, to channel life and suffering, to hold steady even under immense strain. But I chafed under the proscription that Empaths must not harm the living, even in defense of the defenseless. It felt like a shackle, not a virtue.

Still, I had my inspirations. Not the serene instructors the Guild tried to set before me, but the bold ones—the ones who climbed past the walls built around us. Sophrona with her iron resolve, Edenlaen, Kaith Partani, whose mastery of our craft became the pinnacle I set my sights on. And Beautyanna… gods, I remember her most vividly.

I was fledgling, full of reckless bravado, when I wandered into the sand sprite caves of Ratha thinking I could “dance” in the swains like the stories said. I was swarmed and nearly torn apart. My shield buckled, my breath faltered, and I understood—too late—that I had no idea what true battlefield dancing required. Then she arrived. Beautyanna cut through that chaos with effortless grace, dragging me into safety with one strong hand. She smiled at me—not kind, but knowing—and said, “You’ve got heart. Learn the rest before it gets you killed.” She moved on with her life, and later beyond this world entirely, but the imprint of her mastery stayed with me. She wasn’t why I joined the Guild, but she became a template for what I aspired to become.

For all the Guild’s talk of purity and righteousness, it carried shadows too. None darker than Jomay Maveinelei. I remember learning her history: once the head of the Imperial Healers’ Guild, brilliant, cunning—and corrupted by her own ambition. She walked hand-in-hand with the Outcasts and goblins, spread the ristan’dia plague, manipulated identities, and used empathy for cruelty. She had been the last to see the brilliant Khalo Chene Niedave Jataid before he died from the very insect venom she specialized in. She walked the path of research to heights unmatched—then twisted her gifts so far she betrayed the Empire itself. Jomay was everything I refused to become: a reminder that Empaths were not saints, but people—capable of horror when their discipline faltered.

Seeing that darkness so plainly hardened something inside me. I vowed to reject any path that led toward such corruption—any path that sought power without honor or discipline. If I was to become strong, I would become strong cleanly.

So I trained. In the fields, in the swains, on battlefronts. I healed not from the safety of a rear line, but standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the fighters. During the Outcast Wars, when Grishnok Kroan, the goblin, charged in with his maddened hordes, I stood at the frontlines healing those who tried to hold him back. I couldn’t strike him—not then—but I stood my ground. I remember the moment when he barreled close enough that I felt his breath. The earth shook under his weight. I refused to retreat. When he swung at a soldier beside me, I slammed my shield into him and shouted at the idiot to move. Later, in the chaos of the skirmish, I struck Grishnok—slapped him across the jaw with the face of my shield—not as an attack, but a desperate, furious command to stop butchering the wounded. Some say the blow echoed across the battlefield. I don’t know if that’s true. But I know Grishnok Kroan never forgot me.

Yet even in the thick of that war, bound by old empathic limits, I remained unable to fight back directly. So I trained in silence, in secret, on constructs that let me learn the language of weapons without breaking the law that bound my hands. Thousands of hours of drills. Precision. Balance. Poise. I built myself into the warrior I one day hoped to become, even if it looked impossible.

And then I learned Absolution.

The moment its magic softened the empathic restrictions that had caged me my entire life, I felt the world finally tilt into its proper shape. All those years of silent weapon practice snapped into place. I did not become a warrior—I revealed that I had been one since the day I refused to bow. The first time I struck down a living foe, it wasn’t a clumsy swing. It was perfection born of relentless discipline.

That was when the whispers became a name: Renegade Empath.

Meant as criticism. Taken as truth. I didn’t just accept it—I embraced it. I stitched it into my shirt. I carried it like a standard. Not a rebel without cause, but a pioneer of a path that others were too afraid to tread.

And now, in the later years of my life, I watch the new generation—the young men and women of our Guild—dancing with beasts in ways I once only dreamed of. They parry, they block, they evade with elegance and ferocity, fighting with both heart and skill. They wield Absolution confidently. They stand their ground without apology. They flourish on the path that used to be taboo.

And I feel nothing but pride.

Pride that the Guild has grown. Pride that the path I carved through blood, pain, and stubborn will is no longer forbidden. Pride that Beautyanna’s memory still echoes in every fearless step. Pride that Jomay’s legacy serves as a warning, not a destiny.

Pride that the title Renegade Empath no longer means exile, but trailblazer.