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Pretty much everything about this lion's bio here is 100% in the lore of my pride, not really what his game statistics are. He is male in lore and will be frozen eventually, so it doesn't really matter anyway lol
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Can you hear them?
Souls ever silent, ever hushed?
Can you see them?
Spirits ever twisted, ever dark?
No eye knows the dark from the light,
No ear knows the truth amidst the lie,
None but the Devourer and Protector.
~A poem spoken in regards to Aephier among the healers and storytellers of the pride.
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Mother: Xuna
Father: Tah'Dajo
Maternal Grandparents: Remzateri and Eit'Tara
Paternal Grandparents: Tah'Noto and Daja
Father of:
Personality
Aephier comes off as a frightening being to many who first meet him, but he is fair, just, and loyal. He is willing to give the benefit of the doubt to any among the living, and to the dead he offers protection against things that seek to ensnare souls or twist them. He is the Protector of Souls, but he holds another title as well; like his father is a punisher of the wicked, the Devourer of Souls.
Role in Pride
Aephier primary remains on his own with Ry'Kelo and his bird companions. The pride occasionally comes to him knowing he has a strong connection to the spiritual world, but otherwise they tend to avoid him. His presence often comes off as intimidating to even those who know he is of little threat to them.
Relationships
Aephier and his father have never been on the best or worst of terms. Aephier certainly respects his father, but he does not bow to him. That said, they both have a complicated relationship that from the outside appears to be fully business and formal.
Aephier's relationship with his mother is far more strained than that with his father. Xuna often seeks to pull Aephier into her plans and her web of secrets, deception, and bloodshed. He does not fall for her plots, but even still he hears her out. Xuna dotes on her beloved son, despite her occasional plotting, for Aephier is perhaps the only thing the fallen demi-goddess truly does love.
Aephier and his extended family have mixed relationships. He came here seeking Zarah, his aunt, to see what became of her, as he put it. His uncle, Rei'Noro he is suspicious of almost constantly.
The pride largely avoids him except the healers or those brave enough to come to him. They know his father to be a protector of the pride, so if Tah'Dajo allows Aephier to stay, certainty he can't be all that bad? Aephier tends to remain on the outskirts, but he welcomes visitors and company.
Ry'Kelo is Aephier's closet companion. The lesser tari has always been Aephier's servant, but the two of them have always been more like two friends or even brothers. Kelo fails to understand his lord's reasons for being here in the living world, but he does not challenge it. He's just finds it all very boring.
Eit'Kera (the magpie) and Ydry'Darkono (the raven) are like Kelo, but even more minor divine creatures, unable to take on physical form besides that of birds. The two birds are almost always with Aephier unless he sends them away on missions. Only he and the other gods (and Kelo!) can seem to understand the birds. As tari spirits, the two are messengers between Aephier and the souls of the dead, and are brother and sister. Kera is his eyes within the Sea of Stars while Darkono is such within other resting places for spirits which Aephier has domain over.
Den
Aephier shares his den with Kelo and his birds, and occasionally his aunt joins him at the fringes of the pride's territory.
The Devourer of Souls or Protector of Souls?
Aephier was born early in his father's history among mortals. His mother was the daughter and still champion of Eit'Tara, goddess of bloodshed, and Xuna found in Tah'Dajo a fierce and powerful companion. In those days, Tah'Dajo still raged against the gods in the heavens, thwarting their plans among mortals at every chance he was given. Aephier was Tah'Dajo's firstborn, and many expected him to follow in his father's footsteps or his mother's. He did not. Where Tah'Dajo believed he could regain his place in the heavens by force, Aephier believed he could earn it by peace and service. Above all else he learned from his parents, Aephier learned from his father that all were to be given a fair chance, and Aephier believed it was impossible for his father to be the only among the gods who believed this.
Aephier found a fair god to serve in Dara, the Shepherd of the Dying. Dara was not a judge of souls, rather a guide from the living world to the spiritual, and he had a small handful of tari servants under him to aid him. Aephier left his parents and came to Dara to offer his service to the Shepherd. Dara, having no love for his brother's actions against the Forsaken gods, welcomed Aephier's service. Aephier quickly became the god of shadows, but few living mortals knew of him, and those that did feared him. Aephier, however, cared little of what the living thought. It was the dead who were important to him. In his service to Dara, he heard the plight of the dead; demons stealing souls away from the afterlife; gods caring little for those souls who were not noteworthy or pious; even the living abusing the dead with dark magics. Aephier became the first god truly dedicated to protecting the spiritual world.
Aephier would struggle with his domain, however. Sometimes it was the dead who tormented the dead. In the most extreme of cases, Aephier found himself as a punisher of the wicked dead, a role he was not fond of, but one that was undeniably necessary at times. He would gain for himself many titles: Lich-Bane, Devourer of Souls, Protector of Souls, Shadow of Death, the Shepherd's Hound, the Shadowed Shield, and others.
A Place to Rest...
"Found her! Found her!"
"Home, lake!"
"Lions, lake! Home! Found her!"
A dark colored male lion with light undertones walked with a golden male as a pair of birds pestered them, flying around them and even landing on them, full of excitement. The birds kept repeating their mantra at the lions. The dark male, a bit larger than his companion, seemed to largely ignore the birds besides listening to their initial greeting. His companion, however, snarled anytime one landed on him or squawked in his face. Finally, one of the birds, a magpie, got too close to the golden male as it sung it's chaotic chorus, and he took a swipe at it.
"We heard you the first hundred times, bird-brains!" the golden male growled as he swatted the bird away from him. He paused his walking, looking to the ground where the bird was miraculously still alive and perfectly fine, shaking the dust from its feathers. Narrowing his eyes at the bird, he continued to follow the dark male. "How do you put up with these two, my lord?"
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