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Covenant |
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References: |
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DA1, DA2, DA3, DA4, DA5, DA6, DA7, DA8, DA9, DA10, DA11, DA12, DA13, DA14, DA15, DA16, DA17, DA18, DA19, DA20, DA21, DA22, DA23, DA24, DA25, DA26, DA27, DA28, 118 |
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Alias(es): |
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The Black Knight, Lord Iain Covenant, Sir Iain Covenant |
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Lord Iain Covenant was the just and relatively well-liked ruler of a city named Rhyll during the time of the crusades. Like many of his fellow English, Lord Covenant left his home to join in the Pope’s war against the Muslims in the holy lands. Unlike the others, Covenant did not go for the glory of his God, or for the adventure of battle. He went to find redemption for the sins he had committed. In particular, he sought forgiveness for secretly having an affair with one of his sister’s handmaidens (DA2).
The handmaiden, a lovely young woman named Shiann, was very alluring and she and Covenant quickly fell in love. Unknown to Covenant, Shiann was pregnant with his child when he left to go to war. Had he known of this, he would have stayed with her. But as she kept it a secret, Covenant went to fight in the crusades never to return alive (DA3).
Fighting in the crusades, Covenant proved to be a natural warrior. He slayed many foes, knowing that if he should fall under an enemy’s blade, he would have redeemed himself and would be welcomed by God into Heaven. A compatriot of his, Cretien DuSang De La Croix, accompanied him into many battles. Unlike Covenant, Cretian fought in the crusades for adventure and profit and bid Covenant to do the same (DA5).
One night, Muslim warriors destroyed Covenant’s camp while he slept. Cretian, who sold his allies out for profit, had tipped off the Muslims. Covenant was killed, and as he died, he felt at peace knowing that he would be welcomed into Heaven (DA5). He was wrong.
After death, Covenant made a deal with the demon Malebolgia. While the exact details are unknown, it is certain that he traded his soul in exchange for returning to Earth. Covenant was not fully aware of what he was doing or with whom he was dealing, however, and the deal was not in his favor.
 Lord Covenant was reborn on Earth as a hellspawn near the village of Rhyll where he once ruled. His first act as hellspawn was to behead three thieves plundering the grave of a commoner, the grave of his beloved Shiann (DA1). Covenant then journeyed into Rhyll where he found a man named Guy DuBlanc terrorizing the patrons of the local tavern. Still bound by the honor codes he lived by as a man, Covenant defended the citizens of Rhyll and attacked. DuBlanc escaped alive, but would be horribly scarred for life (DA1).
After the battle, Covenant returned to the keep he called home when he was alive and found Cogliostro waiting for him. Cog introduced himself and began to explain what was happening to the confused hellspawn. He refreshed Covenant’s memories about who he was in life, and how he came to be reborn as a hellspawn. Shocked by the flood of his returning memories, Covenant became furious. He rejected both Heaven and Hell, and cursed their Gods for forsaking him (DA2).
Soon after, Covenant was summoned to the presence of three mystical sisters known as the Sisters of the Morrigan (DA2). They sought to harness the power of the hellspawn and were working with his brother in-law, the ruthless Baron Rivalen. In Covenant’s absence, Rivalen had taken control of Rhyll and maintained order through fear and pain carried out by his man at arms, Guy DuBlanc (DA3).
The sisters held the hellspawn in a state of semi-consciousness for over two weeks before he escaped by using his new hellborn power of teleportation. Safely back in Rhyll, Covenant gathered his former subjects and led them in a revolt against Rivalen. Cog tried to persuade Covenant to abandon the affairs of man and train with him as a hellspawn, but Covenant had no interest in the old man (DA3).
Covenant ‘s rebellion was successful. He overtook Rivalen’s keep and freed the citizens of Rhyll. After the fight, Covenant left his home and set off to travel the countryside in order to better understand the life he now led (DA4). His travels eventually took him out of England and into France, but all the while he was trailed by both DuBlanc and Cogliostro. When Covenant’s path led him near a small abbey, he earned the notice of another hunter as well, an angel named Immaculata (DA6-7).
In a confrontation between the four: Cogliostro, Covenant, Immaculata and DuBlanc, Covenant demanded to be left alone. He was disgusted by the creature that called itself an angel but was merely an instrument of war. He was uninterested in continuing to fight battle after battle with the likes of Dublanc. Above all, he was unwilling to accept the hellborn powers he had been given, or to train under Cogliostro. Covenant once again set off to journey the world alone (DA8).
 After some time, Covenant booked passage back to England. When the ship encountered bad weather, Covenant was blamed for carrying bad luck and was attacked by the crew. He was chained to a rock within a seaside cave and left to die. Unable to free himself, and unwilling to use his powers to do so, Covenant decided to simply accept his imprisonment. Some 40 years later, he was finally rescued by a strange young girl named Maeve, who had seen him in a vision (DA10).
Maeve was leading an army of children against a growing pagan horde that had been ravaging the countryside. She offered Covenant salvation in return for his leadership and training, and though he doubted her hopes and promises, he accepted. Covenant set out to train and ready the Children’s Army for battle (DA11, 12, 13).
When the final battle drew close, Covenant met with the leader of the Pagan horde: Cogliostro. Cog was planning a giant offering to the forces of Greenworld and was using his army to do it. He offered for Covenant to join him, but ever honorable, Covenant declined (DA13). When the battle came, Maeve and her army were slaughtered by Cog’s forces as Covenant refused to use his hellborn powers to sway the tide (DA14).
After his failure with Maeve, Covenant began to wander once again. While roaming the countryside, he was confronted by a vision of Shiann and followed it into a trap. He had been fooled by a group of renegade druids, led by a man named Gareth, and lured into their trap. They sought to “draw a line in the sand” in the new war between Heaven and Hell of which they wanted no part. They were determined to defend mother Earth, and to prove their power, they forcefully removed the necroplasm from Covenant (DA16).
 Without his necroplasm, Covenant was no longer a hellspawn, but was still not a man. He was something new, something in-between. But mistakenly believing he was a man once again, Covenant returned to his home of Rhyll (DA17). Back home he reclaimed lordship over the village and tried to begin a new life. It was short lived however.
Covenant blacked out for some reason, and when he awoke he was horrified to discover that most of Rhyll had been massacred. Confused and traumatized, the survivors blamed Covenant and set to burn him at the stake. He was saved by a young boy named Alek and ran to Cog for help. Cogliostro, while surprised at the shocking turn of events, wanted nothing to do with Covenant since he was no longer a hellspawn (DA18).
Ousted from his home, rejected by Cog, Covenant once again began to wander. He traveled for many months and finally came to terms with his fate. After rescuing a small city called Turnbold from evil, he came to the realization that no one was to blame for his sins or his damnation but himself (DA19, 20, 21). He became friends with a giant named Dumas, and under Dumas’s gentle tutelage, Covenant found enlightenment. When Dumas passed away, Covenant returned to Rhyll once again - a changed man (DA23-24).
 Soon after his return, Covenant learned of the fate of his necroplasm. It had been stolen from Gareth the druid and implanted into a dying Bishop. The merger of holy man and necroplasm created a hideous monster that threatened to destroy everything it encountered. Together with Cog and Gareth, Covenant went to find the Bishop and extract the necroplasm from him (DA25-26).
Fighting against the Bishop, Covenant refused to accept the necroplasm back into himself. Instead he had Gareth construct a new cage to imprison it. When the battle was over, they emerged victorious in defeating Bishop Gaston Gui and imprisoning the necroplasm, but Gareth did not survive (DA27).
Cog and Covenant went their separate ways, as Covenant returned to Rhyll yet again. Back home, Covenant was horrified to find Rhyll annihilated for the final time. It had been destroyed by the Phlebiac Brothers, demons from Hell sent to punish Covenant for breaking his deal with Malebolgia.
Without his powers, Covenant was no match for the beasts and was ripped apart. As he was dying for the second time, his lover Shiann appeared to him. She told him to let go, that Hell could not take him a second time. Covenant did at last, and he ascended with Shiann into the light (DA28).
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