The Factol
(Planar human ranger [she/her] / Doomguard / CN)
The current Factol of the Doomguard has spent all of her thirty-odd years of life steeped in chaos and destruction. For as long as she’s lived, Pentar has actively sought out situations that were both highly dangerous and as well as rife with the potential for decay. Since she was born in the Outlands gate-town of Xaos, the landscape itself provided such opportunities nearly constantly. Seeing that she spent so much time away from the relative safety of the burg, Pentar’s parents apprenticed her to a local ranger. Initially, the young girl resisted the training, but she quickly changed her mind once she came to realise that being a ranger would allow her not only to travel through the chaotic wilderness more easily – and thus survive to see more of it – but it would also allow for a greater understanding and appreciation of the Entropy found in nature. Pentar’s strong desire to experience natural Entropy first-hand nearly got her killed when she was a teenager. She was revelling on the slopes of an erupting volcano and barely managed to escape the lava that was flowing towards her.
Despite such personal experiences with Entropy, she soon grew bored with traveling from one natural disaster to another. Even causing them didn’t hold her interest for long. So, at the age of 20, Pentar traveled to Sigil and sought out the Doomguard to become a member. She hoped to find greater challenges and dangers inside a group of like-minded individuals. The faction soon realized that she was a good asset to have. Seeing that Pentar was utterly fearless in battle or any dangerous situation, the high-ups quickly promoted her to Decay Knight, so that she could lead their troops on difficult missions. Her unquenchable zeal moved her forward once again into the ranks of the Entropic Champions.
Pentar was assigned the quest of traveling to the Prime Material Plane and freeing one its worlds from the grip of a lawful order of mages and priests that had recently come to power. She was chosen for this mission primarily because the world was one of mostly wilderness, but nature itself had been enslaved and controlled by the spellslingers. The young woman succeeded admirably and quickly. (Pentar managed to not only incite the residents to revolt, but brought many animals into the conflict as well. She also was able to use some of her early experiences from before joining the Doomguard and create a few natural disasters as well.) Upon returning to the Cage, the ranger readily volunteered for another entropic quest. This time, the high-ups decided to give her a task that was more planar in origin. They sent her to Xaos with the goal of sending it over the edge and into Limbo.
This mission was actually a test. Having seen her potential earlier, and her actual skills against the lawful order, the Doomlords decided to groom Pentar for the position of Factol. This decision brought a lot of disagreement from the Nernstroms. After all, the leader of the faction usually comes from the ranks of the Doomlords, and only rarely from the Nernstroms. Skipping two levels of rank and pulling someone from the Entropic Champions was unheard of. The true nature of the test was not see if Pentar could accomplish the goal, but how she would go about it. The leaders needed to see if she would be influenced by sympathy or nostalgia for her family and her former home. She wasn’t. Upon completing this task, Pentar was willing to sacrifice even more of her skin and take up a third quest, when the previous Factol was killed in a slave revolt of his own making. Pentar was unanimously elected to the position.
Pentar has been the Factol of the Doomguard for just over five years. In her tenure, she has pushed the faction even further towards the agenda popular among the Destroyer fraction. In addition to calling for more and more acts of public violence and destruction, she has also been focusing the efforts of the faction as a whole on the stopping of the Great Modron March. While this task has been considered a duty of the Factol practically since the faction was founded, Pentar is giving every indication of being the one to finally accomplish it. She has formed an alliance with a group of tanar’ri in order to obtain a series of very destructive war machines (the Ships of Chaos). She has also sought out any number of dangerous monsters that can be unleashed on the modrons during the March. In process of this preparation for what is sure to be a glorious act of Entropy, Pentar has distanced herself from the day-to-day politics and operations of the faction. She has turned most of this responsibility over to the Doomlords, particularly the Doomlord of the Armoury (Bendon Mawl).
Pentar is an unwavering member of the Destroyers fraction. She is always ready for battle. She never takes off her armour, and her weapons – especially her Dust Blade of Modron Death and arrows of Modron slaying – are rarely far from her side. Her raven-coloured hair is kept long and unfettered, despite the possibility of it blinding her in battle. Her personality reveals that she has a volatile temper and suffers from mercurial mood swings. (This does not affect her leadership skills, however.) Although her initial focus was on accelerating the Entropy found in Nature, Pentar has easily embraced the concept of speeding up the decay of the entire multiverse. While the other factions are glad she’s currently obsessed with the upcoming Great Modron March, as it tends to reduce the amount of Sigil the faction damages on a daily basis, they are a little worried about what the faction’s next target will be should she succeed.
Source: Ken Lipka
